PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: EDMUND SPENSER “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Walden HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: EDMUND SPENSER PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN WALDEN: If one guest came he sometimes partook of my frugal meal, PEOPLE OF and it was no interruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty- WALDEN pudding, or watching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread in the ashes, in the mean while. But if twenty came and sat in my house there was nothing said about dinner, though there might be bread enough for two, more than if eating were a forsaken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; and this was never felt to be an offence against hospitality, but the most proper and considerate course. The waste and decay of physical life, which so often needs repair, seemed miraculously retarded in such a case, and the vital vigor stood its ground. I could entertain thus a thousand as well as twenty; and if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I sympathized with them at least. So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in place of the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a man’s house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made about dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. I think I shall never revisit those scenes. I should be proud to have for the motto of my cabin those lines of Spenser which one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf for a card:– “Arrivéd there, the little house they fill, Ne looke for entertainment where none was; Rest is their feast, and all things at their will: The noblest mind the best contentment has.” EDMUND SPENSER HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: EDMUND SPENSER PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1552 In approximately this year Richard Hakluyt was born in or near London. In this year or the following one, Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT The People of Walden “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: EDMUND SPENSER PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1590 The 1st part of Edmund Spenser’s THE FAERIE QUEENE. WALDEN: If one guest came he sometimes partook of my frugal meal, PEOPLE OF and it was no interruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty- WALDEN pudding, or watching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread in the ashes, in the mean while. But if twenty came and sat in my house there was nothing said about dinner, though there might be bread enough for two, more than if eating were a forsaken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; and this was never felt to be an offence against hospitality, but the most proper and considerate course. The waste and decay of physical life, which so often needs repair, seemed miraculously retarded in such a case, and the vital vigor stood its ground. I could entertain thus a thousand as well as twenty; and if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I sympathized with them at least. So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in place of the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a man’s house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made about dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. I think I shall never revisit those scenes. I should be proud to have for the motto of my cabin those lines of Spenser which one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf for a card:– “Arrivéd there, the little house they fill, Ne looke for entertainment where none was; Rest is their feast, and all things at their will: The noblest mind the best contentment has.” EDMUND SPENSER HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: EDMUND SPENSER PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1591 William Browne was born at Tavistock in Devonshire to a branch of the family of Browne of Betchworth Castle in Surrey, England. After a grammar-school education in his native town he would attend Exeter College at Oxford University. Edmund Spenser became the initial Poet Laureate of England: The Poets Laureate of England 1591-1599 Edmund Spenser 1599-1619 Samuel Daniel 1619-1637 Ben Jonson 1638-1668 William Davenant 1670-1689 John Dryden 1689-1692 Thomas Shadwell 1692-1715 Nahum Tate 1715-1718 Nicholas Rowe 1718-1730 Laurence Eusden 1730-1757 Colley Cibber 1758-1785 William Whitehead 1785-1790 Thomas Warton 1790-1813 Henry James Pye 1813-1843 Robert Southey 1843-1850 William Wordsworth 1850-1892 Alfred Lord Tennyson 1896-1913 Alfred Austin 1913-1930 Robert Bridges HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: EDMUND SPENSER PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN The Poets Laureate of England 1930-1967 John Masefield 1967-1972 Cecil Day-Lewis 1972-1984 Sir John Betjeman 1984-1998 Ted Hughes 1999- Andrew Motion LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Walden HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: EDMUND SPENSER PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1594 When the Ulster chieftains rebelled, there began the “Tyrone War” in Ireland between the Celtic society and the English colonialist society, ended ultimately in the total defeat and humiliation of Celtic Ireland. The English commander, Lord Mountjoy, was provided with ample funds to recruit and suborn any Irish units which could be captured and persuaded to pledge allegiance to the queen. Such suborned military units were of course not trusted, but instead were kept under pay “rather to prevent their fighting against us, than for confidence in their fighting for us.” Meanwhile they were carefully being “exposed to endure the brunt of service upon all occasions” in the expectation that by the end of the period of strife they could be decimated. (As Fynes Moryson (1566-1603) would write in 1617, “the death of these peaceable swordsmen, though falling on our [the English] side, was yet [regarded as] rather a gain than a loss.” A starvation policy had been prosecuted primarily in Ulster but also throughout the island by Lord Mountjoy for a full three and one-half years of this nine-year episode. During each planting time, armies had taken to the field to prevent any planting. During each growing season, the armies had devoted themselves to cutting down or burning any crops found in any field. During and after each harvest, any stored grain that could be located had been confiscated. Each winter the effort had been made to drive the Irish out of their villages, naked into the woods to die of exposure. Edmund Spenser, master of an English plantation in Ireland and Sheriff-designate for Cork, advised Queen Elizabeth, Until Ireland can be famished, it cannot be subdued. The pressure had been unprincipled and relentless, and by the end was triumphant. When the forces of Hugh O’Neil went down in defeat, it was all over except the shouting. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Walden HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: EDMUND SPENSER PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1596 Completion of Edmund Spenser’s THE FAERIE QUEENE, including, in Book III, Canto VI, 32, the earliest poetical allusion to tobacco in English literature. WALDEN: If one guest came he sometimes partook of my frugal meal, PEOPLE OF and it was no interruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty- WALDEN pudding, or watching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread in the ashes, in the mean while. But if twenty came and sat in my house there was nothing said about dinner, though there might be bread enough for two, more than if eating were a forsaken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; and this was never felt to be an offence against hospitality, but the most proper and considerate course. The waste and decay of physical life, which so often needs repair, seemed miraculously retarded in such a case, and the vital vigor stood its ground. I could entertain thus a thousand as well as twenty; and if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I sympathized with them at least. So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in place of the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a man’s house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made about dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again.