Note 103 — Chapter II

The late A. B. Grosart, in a passage which is a masterpiece of literary casuistry (Spenser, iii. p. lii.), put forward the truly astounding theory that the discussions on the evils of the clergy and similar subjects, put into the mouths of shepherds in the Calender and elsewhere, are 'in nicest keeping with character.' Such a theory ignores the essence of the question, for, even supposing that shepherds had done nothing else but discuss the corruption of the Curia since there was a Curia to be corrupted, it is still utterly beside the mark. Apart from his own observation of ecclesiastical manners, Spenser's compositions have for their sole origin the similar discussions of the humanistic eclogues, while these in their turn did but cast the individual opinions of their authors into a conventional mould inherited from the classical poets. Thus, so far as actual shepherds are connected with Spenser's eclogues at all, they belong to an age when the Curia and all its sins were happily unknown.