THE

WORKS

OF

EDMUND SPENSER.

IN EIGHT VOLUMES.

WITH THE

PRINCIPAL ILLUSTRATIONS

OF

VARIOUS COMMENTATORS.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED,

NOTES, SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF SPENSER,

AND

A GLOSSARIAL AND OTHER INDEXES.

BY THE

REV. HENRY JOHN TODD, M.A. F.A.S.

RECTOR OF ALLNALLOWS, LOMBARD-STREET, LONDON, &c.

Our fage ferious Spenfer, whom I dare be known to
think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas.

Milton's Areopagitica.

No man was ever born with a greater genius, or had
more knowledge to fupport it, than Spenter.

Dryden's Difcourse on Epiek Poetry.

VOLUME THE FIRST.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, T. PAYNE,

CADELL AND DAVIES, AND R. H. EVANS.

TOR LIBRARY

1805.

NEW-YORK

1

Bye and Law, Printers, St. John's Square, Clerkenwell.

C

TO THE

KING.

SIR,

THE gracious permiffion of dedicating the Works of Spenfer to your Majefty, with which I have been honoured, has been a principal fource of encouragement to me in the labour bestowed on the illuftration of those Works; and will be the conftant theme of my gratitude.

In calling to mind your Majesty's love of literature; of that literature especially which promotes the good of fociety, while it affords the highest delight to the imagination; my encouragement has been an humble hope that your Majefty may find in thefe volumes, however numerous my own imperfections in them may be, fome circumstances respecting the MORAL POET, till now untold. Of my gratitude it cannot but be the perpetual

fubject, that I have been thus allowed to testify the reverence, with which I am impreffed, of your Majefty's illuftrious conduct, in all the duties, and in all the charities, of publick and domeftick life,

PREFACE.

THE Publick is here prefented with the first edition of Spenfer's Works, to which the illuftrations of various authors have been fubjoined.

The text of this edition is given from a careful collation of the various poems, which were pub lifhed while the author lived; and from an attention to the mutual help in regard to correction, as well as to the choice of phrafeology and orthography, which the several editions of those poems afford. And of the View of the State of Ireland the first edition, published long after the death of Spenfer by Sir James Ware, occafionally compared with manufcript readings of authority, has been exactly followed.

Of the Faerie Queene two feparate editions, by Mr. Upton and Mr. Church, appeared in 1758; in which the diligence and utility of collation, more especially by the latter of thefe gentlemen, are as obvious as they are important; in which the original orthography has been judiciously followed; in which, however, fome few variations may be ob ferved. It has therefore been a part of my bufinefs to compare and adjust the readings alfo of these editors.

a See an account of these manufcripts, vol. viii. p. 386. Of Spenfer's Mifcellaneous Poems there are fome tranfcripts in the British Mufeum, but of no importance.