Chapter III: God and the Soul (2)

The conception of matter which Spenser teaches is the doctrine of Plotinus expressed in accordance with the account of flux and stability of natural phenomena explained by Plato in the “Timæus.” According to Plotinus matter is an indestructible “subject” of forms which endures through all the various changes which it is constantly undergoing, and this unchanging something is never destroyed. (“Enneads,” II. iv. 6.) In the “Timæus” Plato had outlined a theory of flux with which this doctrine of the indestructibility of matter could be easily harmonized. In his discussion of the world of natural phenomena he distinguishes three natures, as he calls them, and likens them to a father, a child, and a mother. “For the present,” he says in the “Timæus” (50), “we have only to conceive of three natures: first, that which is in process of generation; secondly, that in which the generation takes place; and thirdly, that of which the thing generated is a resemblance. And we may liken the receiving principle to a mother, and the source or spring to a father, and the intermediate nature to a child.” According to this piece of poetic imagery he describes the various manifestations of matter in the outward world. The elements are constantly changing in and out of one another and have in them nothing permanent. They cannot be called “this” or “that,” but only “such.” Only the receiving principle, the universal nature, “that must be always called the same; for while receiving all things, she never departs at all from her own nature, and never in any way or at any time assumes a form like that of any of the things which enter into her; she is the natural recipient of all impressions, and is stirred and informed by them, and appears different from time to time by reason of them.” (“Timæus,” 50.)

The explanation of the myriad changes of matter of the outward world of sense after the manner of this account by Plato is found in Spenser’s description of the “Garden of Adonis.” The term “garden of Adonis” is found in Plato’s “Phædrus” (276), where is meant an earthen vessel in which plants are nourished to quick growth only to decay as rapidly. On this term Spenser’s imagination built its superstructure of fancy by which the garden of Adonis became symbolic of the world of natural phenomena described after the manner of Plato in the “Timæus” and Plotinus in the “Enneads.” The garden is described at first as a seminary of all living things, conceived first as flowers:

“In that same Gardin all the goodly flowres,
Wherewith dame Nature doth her beautifie,
And decks the girlonds of her paramoures,
Are fetcht: there is the first seminarie
Of all things, that are borne to live and die,
According to their kindes. Long worke it were,
Here to account the endlesse progenie
Of all the weedes, that bud and blossome there;
But so much as doth need, must needs be counted here.”

(III. vi. 30.)

Spenser’s imagination now changes, and he conceives of the objects in this garden as naked babes, in accordance with the suggestion of the intermediate nature which Plato conceived as a child. Genius as the porter of the place is thus described:

“He letteth in, he letteth out to wend,
All that to come into the world desire;
A thousand thousand naked babes attend
About him day and night, which doe require,
That he with fleshly weedes would them attire:
Such as him list, such as eternal fate
Ordained hath, he clothes with sinfull mire,
And sendeth forth to live in mortall state,
Till they againe returne backe by the hinder gate.”

(III. vi. 32.)

Again there is a change, and the objects issuing from this garden are forms which borrow their substance from the matter of chaos.

“Infinite shapes of creatures there are bred,
And uncouth formes, which none yet ever knew,
And every sort is in a sundry bed
Set by it selfe, and ranckt in comely rew
Some fit for reasonable soules t’ indew,
Some made for beasts, some made for birds to weare,
And all the fruitfull spawne of fishes hew
In endlesse rancks along enraunged were,
That seem’d the _Ocean_ could not containe them there.”

(III. vi. 35.)

When these forms are sent forth from the garden they take for their substance the matter found in chaos which is ever eternal.

“Daily they grow, and daily forth are sent
Into the world, it to replenish more;
Yet is the stocke not lessened, nor spent,
But still remaines in everlasting store,
As it at first created was of yore.
For in the wide wombe of the world there lyes,
In hateful darkenesse and in deepe horrore,
An huge eternall _Chaos_, which supplyes
The substances of natures fruitfull progenyes.

“All things from thence doe their first being fetch,
And borrow matters whereof they are made,
Which when as forme and feature it doth ketch,
Becomes a bodie, and doth then invade
The state of life, out of the griesly shade.
That substance is eterne, and bideth so,
Ne when the life decayes, and forme does fade,
Doth it consume, and into nothing go,
But chaunged is, and often altred to and fro.”

(III. vi. 36–37.)

Spenser now stops the play of fancy and becomes the philosopher, explaining the doctrine of matter as taught by Plotinus. The substance of things is eternal and abides in potency of further change.

“The substance is not changed, nor altered,
But th’ only forme and outward fashion;
For every substance is conditioned
To change her hew, and sundry formes to don,
Meet for her temper and complexion:
For formes are variable and decay,
By course of kind, and by occasion;
And that faire flower of beautie fades away,
As doth the lilly fresh before the sunny ray.”

(II. vi. 38.)

Finally, Spenser closes his account of the garden with a mingling of fancy and philosophy. He adopts the suggestion of Plato that the source of the many changes in natural phenomena is a father, and blends the conception with the myth of Venus and Adonis. In the garden Venus is represented as enjoying the pleasure of the presence of Adonis perpetually, for he is described as the father of the various forms who abides eternal in all change.

“There wont faire _Venus_ often to enjoy
Her deare _Adonis_ joyous company,
And reape sweet pleasure of the wanton boy;
There yet, some say, in secret he does ly,
Lapped in flowers and pretious spycery,
By her hid from the world, and from the skill
Of _Stygian_ Gods, which doe her love envy;
But she her selfe, when ever that she will,
Possesseth him, and of his sweetnesse takes her fill.

“And sooth it seemes they say: for he may not
For ever die, and ever buried bee
In balefull night, where all things are forgot;
All be he subject to mortalitie,
Yet is eterne in mutabilitie,
And by succession made perpetuall,
Transformed oft, and chaunged diverslie:
For him the Father of all formes they call;
Therefore needs mote he live, that living gives to all.”

(III. vi. 46, 47.)

The attraction which this doctrine of the indestructibility of matter had for Spenser lay in the comforting assurance which it brought him of an eternity when things should be at rest. Throughout Spenser is heard a note of world weariness.

“Nothing is sure, that growes on earthly ground.”

These words placed in the mouth of Arthur (I. ix. 11) are essentially characteristic of Spenser’s outlook on the things of this world: they are his _lacrimæ rerum_. The “Cantos of Mutabilitie” is the best instance in point. These two cantos celebrate the overthrow of Mutability by Nature. To the claim of preëminence among the gods which Mutability lays before Nature, and which she bases upon the fact that everything in the wide universe is subject to constant change, Dame Nature replies that though they be subject to change, they change only their outward state, each change working their perfection; and she further remarks that the time will come when there shall be no more change. At the end of Mutability’s plea Dame Nature thus answers the charge:

“I well consider all that ye have sayd,
And find that all things stedfastnes doe hate
And changed be: yet being rightly wayd
They are not changed from their first estate;
But by their change their being doe dilate:
And turning to themselves at length againe,
Doe worke their owne perfection so by fate:
Then over them Change doth not rule and raigne;
But they raigne over change, and doe their states maintaine.

“Cease therefore daughter further to aspire,
And thee content thus to be rul’d by me:
For thy decay thou seekst by thy desire;
But time shall come that all shall changed bee,
And from thenceforth, none no more change shall see.”

(VII. vii. 58, 59.)

On this decision of Nature Spenser bases his assurance of a time when the soul shall have its final rest. With a prayer to the great God of Sabaoth that he may see the time when all things shall rest in Him, Spenser closes his work on his great unfinished poem—the “Faerie Queene.”

“Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd,
Of that same time when no more _Change_ shall be,
But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd
Upon the pillours of Eternity,
That is contrayr to _Mutabilitie_:
For, all that moveth, doth in _Change_ delight:
But thenceforth all shall rest eternally.
With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight:
O Thou great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight.”

(VII. viii. 2.)

In the theory of the preëxistence of the soul and in the conception of the indestructibility of matter Vaughan and Spenser were able to find teachings which were akin to the most intimate experiences of their lives. Although the phase of Platonic idealism which taught in these two distinct ways the eternity of human life and of the world about us did not have so vital an influence upon English poetry as did the opening of a world of moral beauty, its presence is nevertheless indicative of the strong hold which Platonism had upon some of the finest poetic minds of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England. Even when these poets were writing from the fulness of their own personal experience, it was in the moulds of Platonic philosophy that their thought was cast.

The elements of Platonism, then, that enter into the English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have their source in the dialogues of Plato and the “Enneads” of Plotinus. The body of this teaching—its æsthetics, its metaphysics, and its ethics—was seen by the poets in its relation to Christian doctrine and to the passion of romantic love. The more permanent results for good are found in the fusion of Platonism with the ideals of Christian living and with its longing for perfection. If one passage in Plato may adequately sum up the teaching of Platonism most influential in English poetry, it is the passage in “Phædrus” in which the beauty of wisdom is taught (“Phædrus,” 250).

But beauty in its stricter import is a thing known to the sense, and is carried over into the moral world only to indicate the value of moral ideas. Plato recognized this; and in this connection it is significant that in the part of “Phædrus,” where he speaks of the loveliness of wisdom, he is aware of the power of pure beauty. “But of beauty,” he says, “I repeat again that we saw her there [in the ideal world] shining in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense. For sight is the most piercing of our bodily senses; though not by that is wisdom seen; her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a visible image of her, and the other ideas, if they had visible counterparts, would be equally lovely. But this is the privilege of beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight” (250).

Spenser was the poet who caught the spirit of this teaching. Pastorella’s beauty is presented not as Una’s, the beauty of wisdom, nor as Britomart’s, the beauty of the inward purity of womanhood; but it is a beauty of pure form.

“And soothly sure she was full fayre of face,
And perfectly well shapt in every lim,
Which she did more augment with modest grace,
And comely carriage of her count’nance trim,
That all the rest like lesser lamps did dim.”

(VI. ix. 9.)

And yet as she stands on the little hillock she is encompassed with a cloud of glory.

“Upon a litle hillocke she was placed
Higher then all the rest, and round about
Environ’d with a girland, goodly graced,
Of lovely lasses, and them all without
The lustie shepheard swaynes sate in a rout;
The which did pype and sing her prayses dew,
And oft rejoyce, and oft for wonder shout,
As if some miracle of heavenly hew
Were downe to them descended in that earthly vew.”

(VI. ix. 8.)

They saw in the object before their eyes the idea of beauty in earthly form. The miracle is no more and no less than this; it is “the privilege of beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight.”

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INDEX

Absence, effect of, in love, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148.

Acrasia, a type of sensual beauty, 20;
captured by Guyon, 21.

Adam, 43, 44, 83.

Amavia, 24.

“Anatomy of the World, An,” 162, 165.

“Answer to the Platonicks,” 162.

“Anti-monopsychia,” 194, 196.

“Anti-Platonick” (Cleveland’s), 162.

“Anti-Platonick” (Daniel’s), 159.

“Anti-psychopannychia,” 194, 195.

“Apology for Smectymnuus, An,” 47.

“Arcadia,” 66.

Archimago, 14.

ἀρετή, identification of Una with, 2.

Ariosto, 26, 39.

Arthegal, his reverence for Britomart, 35, 37, 38, 40;
his training in justice, 28.

Arthur, as heavenly grace, 3, 62;
his relation to the Red Cross Knight, 62;
his function in scheme of “Faerie Queene,” 62.

Astræa, 27.

“Barriers, The,” 125.

Baxter, 92.

Beauty, in Ficino, 109, 112, 113, 114;
in Plato, 34, 35, 220;
in Milton, 41;
in Spenser, 35,38, 41, 109, 111, 112, 113, 220, 221.
of beloved, its relation to absolute beauty, in George Daniel, 131;
in Ficino, 115;
in Shakespeare, 128, 134, 135;
in Spenser, 32–34, 115, 130, 136.
earthly, 79, 80.
heavenly, a fundamental doctrine of Platonism, 1, 103;
identified as wisdom, 73;
as beauty of intelligible world, 76.

“Beauty,” 86.

Beelzebub, 58.

Being, true, 98.

Belphœbe, 5.

Bower of Bliss, 21.

Boyle, Robert, 158.

Bradamante, 39.

Britomart, 35, 36–38.

“Cælica,” 138.

Calidore, 46.

“Cantos of Mutabilitie,” 217.

Carew, Thomas, 158.

Cartwright, William, 162.

Charles I, 156.

Charleton, Walter, 157.

Chastity, Milton’s idea of, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56.

Christ, mystical love of, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99;
as true being, 98;
Milton’s idea of, 180, 181.

“Christ’s Triumph after Death,” 100–103.

Cleveland, John, 161, 162.

“Colin Clouts Come Home Againe,” 122.

“Commentarium in Convivium,” on love, 107, 108, 115, 116, 121;
on beauty, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114;
its interpretation of Plato, 140.

“Comus,” effect of sensuality on soul taught in, 49;
chastity in, 48, 49, 56;
doctrine of grace in, 63, 64;
parallelism with “Phædo,” 49, _n._ 1.

Comus, his attempts on The Lady, 51–54;
his character, 53.

“Corruption,” 205, 206.

“Court-Platonicke,” 159.

Cowley, Abraham, 161, 162.

Craig, Alexander, 138.

Crashaw, Richard, 97, 99, 138.

Daniel, George, 131, 158.

Daniel, Samuel, 138.

D’Avenant, William, 156.

Diodati, Charles, 41.

Donne, John, mysticism in, 94;
love in, 141, 144, 145, 149, 51, 152, 153, 154;
his idea of woman, 163, 164, 165.

Drayton, Michael, 125, 138.

“Dream, The,” 153.

Drummond, William, his idea of God, 174, 175, 176, 183;
his idea of love, 82, 88, 132;
his idea of heavenly love, 76, 81;
appeal of Platonism to, 76;
his idea of happiness, 86;
his idea of rest, 87.

Dryden, John, 165.

Duessa, 66.

“Ecstacy, The,” 141.

Elissa, 22.

“Enneads,” see under Plotinus.

“Epithalamion,” 31, 32, 33.

“Epithalamy,” 162.

“Epode,” 151.

Eve, 44, 45.

“Faerie Queene,” Christianity and Platonic idealism in, 1;
its teaching on holiness, 1;
its teaching on temperance, see under Guyon;
Platonic ethics in, 26, 39;
its allegorical scheme, 26;
its unity, 29, 30;
beauty of mind in, 33;
function of grace in, 62, 63.

“Fever, A,” 164.

Ficino, see under “Commentarium in Convivium.”

Fidelia, 3.

Fletcher, Giles, 100, 101, 102, 103.

Fletcher, Phineas, 83, 97.

Florimell, 66.

“Forerunners, The,” 90.

“Friendship in Absence,” 161.

Furor, 16.

“Garden of Adonis,” 213–216.

God, as lover of His own beauty, 68, 69;
as The Good, 70, 86;
union of soul with, 100–103;
as “Idea Beatificall,” 102;
as source of beauty, 109, 180;
as Creator, 110;
and the three Platonian hypostases, 172;
as king, 174, 175, 176;
as philosophical principle, 176–178.

Good, The, 169.

“Gorgias,” on temperance, 24.

Grace, doctrine of, its connection with ideal of holiness, 61–63;
its connection with ideal of chastity, 63, 64;
its connection with ideal of temperance, 62, 63;
represented by Arthur, 62.

Greville, Fulke, 138.

Guyon, his adventures, 13;
his struggles with wrath, 14–18;
his struggles with sensual desire, 18–21;
character of his life, 24;
his praise of beauty of mind, 34;
his relation to Arthur, 62.

Habington, William, 147.

Heaven, 92.

Henrietta, Maria, 156, 157.

Herbert, Edward, Lord Herbert, 146, 159.

Herbert, George, 71, 89, 90, 93.

Heywood, Thomas, 156.

Holiness, Platonism and, 10;
its connection with the doctrine of grace, 62.

Holy Spirit, identified with Psyche, 170.

Howell, James, 155, 156, 157.

Hudibras, 22.

“Hymn of Fairest Fair, An,” 174–179, 183, 184.

“Hymne in Honour of Beautie, An,” 106, 109–117, 118.

“Hymne in Honour of Love, An,” 105, 107, 108, 118, 121.

“Hymne of Heavenly Love,” 68, 69, 73, 74, 75, 76, 95, 96.

“Hymne of Heavenly Beautie,” 185, 186.

“Hymne of True Happiness, An,” 86.

Hypostases, the Plotinian, 167, 176, 177.

Idea, Platonic notion of, 95;
connection with mysticism, 95, 101;
term used as title, 138.

“Idea Beatificall,” 102.

Intellect, The, identified with God, 175;
defined, 170, 180;
identified with Christ, 170.

Intelligible world, 77, 78, 81.

“In the Glorious Epiphanie of Our Lord God,” 97–99.

Ithuriel, 59.

Jonson, 122, 123, 151.

“Jordan,” 91.

Joy, in religious experience, 85;
and the beatific vision, 88.

Justice, Spenser’s conception of, 27, 28;
Plato’s conception, 28;
identical with temperance, 28.

Lady, The, in “Comus,” effect of spells of Comus on, 53;
her response to Comus, 54;
her conception of chastity, 54, 56.

Linche, Richard, 138.

Love, nativity of the god of, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124;
treatment of, in Donne, 149–151, 152–155;
in Drayton, 125, 126;
in Ficino, 107, 108, 115, 116;
in Habington, 147;
in Jonson, 123, 124, 125, 151;
in Milton, 41, 47, 82, 83;
in Plato, 34, 35, 120;
in Spenser, 34, 107–109, 115–118, 120, 122;
in Vaughan, 132, 133.
earthly, 83, 88.
heavenly, defined, 67, 72, 73, 84;
in Spenser, 75;
in Drummond, 81.
Platonic, its rise at court, 155, 156;
defined, 155, 156, 160;
ridiculed, 156, 157;
described Lord Herbert, 159, 160;
in Stanley, 158;
in Vaughan, 158;
its immorality, 158.

“Love,” 71.

“Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly,” 124, 125.

Lovelace, Richard, 161.

“Love’s Growth,” 152.

“Love’s Innocence,” 158.

“Love’s Mistress or the Queen’s Masque,” 156.

“Love’s Triumph through Callipolis,” 123, 124.

Mammon, 19.

Margaret of Valois, 156, 157.

“Masque of Beauty, The,” 122, 123.

Matter, in Plato, 211, 215;
in Plotinus, 210, 211, 215;
in Spenser, 212.

Mean, the Aristotelean doctrine of the, described, 21, 22;
in Spenser, 22, 23.

Milton, John, his notion of woman, 40, 41, 44;
his treatment of Eve, 44, 45;
his love of beauty, 41, 44, 64, 65;
his debt to Platonic philosophy, 47;
his idealism, 47, 48, 55, 57, 61;
his conception of sin, 49, 57, 58;
hold of Platonism on, 40, 47, 55, 56, 57, 61, 64, 65;
his idea of chastity, 47, 48, 54, 55;
doctrine of grace in, 63, 64;
his idea of beauty, 64;
his idea of love, 82, 83;
his idea of God, 180;
his idea of Christ, 180.

More, Henry, mysticism in, 99, 196, 199;
his idea of the Trinity, 168, 173;
his idea of soul, 187–193;
his idea of Christ, 170;
his idea of the Holy Spirit, 170–174;
religious feeling in, 182, 201;
his argument for immortality, 187–193;
hold of Platonism on, 193, 202;
on innate ideas, 195.

Mysticism, erotic, defined, 92, 93;
in George Herbert, 93;
in Donne, 94;
its connection with Platonism, 95;
relation of love of Christ to, 95–103.

“Negative Love,” 153–155.

“Nicomachean Ethics,” 22.

“No Platonique Love,” 162.

Norris, John, 86, 87, 89, 157.

One, The, 153, 169, 179.

“Orlando Furioso,” 38, 39.

Palmer, The, 17, 20, 21, 25.

“Paradise Lost,” 49, 58.

“Paradise Regained,” 42.

Pastorella, 46.

Petrarchism, defined, 105, 126;
influence of Platonism on, 105, 127.

Perissa, 22.

“Phædo,” on the function of philosophy, 8;
on effect of sense knowledge on soul, 48, 49 _n._ 1, 50, 55;
on the super-sensible world, 77, 78, 81 _n._ 1.

Phædria, 18.

“Phædrus,” on the beauty of wisdom, 4, 127;
on love, 8, 34, 35;
on beauty of virtue, 4, 127, 220;
on reminiscence, 11, 57, 203, 206, 207;
on sight of true beauty, 57;
on beauty, 220.

“Philebus,” on goodness, 61.

“Piscatorie Eclogues,” 83.

“Platonick, The,” 161.

“Platonic Elegy, A,” 143.

“Platonic Love” (Ayres’s), 161;
(Aytoun’s) 161.

“Platonick Love (Cowley’s), 162;
(Cleveland’s), 162;
(Lord Herbert’s), 159, 160.

“Platonic Lovers,” 156.

Platonism, fundamental principle of, 1, 3, 30;
its relation to ideal of holiness, 10;
its part in religious experience, 12, 71, 72, 85, 91, 92, 181, 183;
its relation to ethics of “Faerie Queene,” 26, 30;
its connection with doctrine of grace, 61;
its relation to doctrine of heavenly love, 67, 68;
its appeal to sense of beauty, 85;
its influence on erotic mysticism, 95–104;
its influence on love poetry, 104;
its relation to morality of love, 136, 137, 138;
its influence on discussion of love, 140, 141;
its three hypostases, 167;
its effect on theology, 167;
its attraction for the religious mind, 183, 193, 194, 201, 202, 216,
218, 219.
Italian, appeal of, to Spenser, 117, 118;
its æsthetic theory, 139;
its debt to Plotinus, 140;
its relation to Plato, 140;
its debt to Ficino, 140.

Plotinus, “Enneads” of, on the intelligible world, 77;
on The Good, 153, 154, 169, 181;
on the hypostases, 167;
on soul, 170, 171;
on intellect, 170;
on The One, 176, 177, 181, 194;
on inter-relation of the hypostases, 177, 180;
on matter, 179, 211;
on immortality, 187.

“Prayer for Mankind,” 184.

“Prospect,” 87.

“Psychathanasia,” idea of creation in, 70;
mysticism in, 99, 194;
immortality in, 187–193;
The One in, 197, 198, 199.

Psyche, 170, 171, 172.

“Psychozoia,” idea of the Trinity in, 168;
religious feeling in, 183.

“Pure Platonicke,” 159.

“Purple Island,” 97.

Pyrochles, 17, 18.

Randolph, Thomas, 143.

Red Cross Knight, his sight of Una’s beauty, 7, 9, 10, 11;
on Mount of Contemplation, 8, 9, 10, 11, 62;
training in House of Holiness, 10;
slandered, 14;
character of, 15;
Arthur’s relation to, 62.

“Republic,” on the good, 8;
on temperance, 13, 14, 28;
on principles within soul, 13;
on justice, 28;
on imitative art, 91 _n._ 1;
on truth and opinion, 125.

Reminiscence, theory of, in Vaughan, 203, 204–206, 207, 208;
in Plato, 203, 206.

“Retreat, The,” 203, 204, 206.

Ruggiero, 39.

Sans Loy, 23.

Satan, his love of beauty, 42, 43–46;
his sight of Eden, 43;
contemplating Adam and Eve, 43, 44, 46;
his regret for lost beauty, 58, 59, 60.

Satyrane, 3.

Sedley, Charles, 161.

“Seraphick Love,” 89.

Shakespeare, 128, 129, 134, 135.

Sidney, Algernon, 157.

Sidney, Philip, on beauty of virtue, 66;
on heavenly love, 84, 85;
on Stella and virtue, 127;
on Plato, 137.

Song—“If you refuse me once,” 161.

Song II—“It Autumn was, and on our hemisphere,” 76, 77, 79–81, 81 _n._
1.

Song, “To a Lady,” 158.

Song, “To Amoret,” 133.

σοφια, Una identified with, 2.

σωφροσύνη, Plato’s idea of, 12.

Soul, three principles in the, 13;
effect of sensuous experience on the, 48, 50, 51;
its self-sufficiency, 61;
its union with God, 89, 100–103;
its formative energy, 113, 114;
union of, in love, 141, 143;
defined, 187, 192, 193;
where found, 188;
a self-moving substance, 188;
immortality of, 189, 190, 191, 192;
its identity after death, 195,196;
universal, identified with woman, 164;
defined, 170, 171.

“Soul’s Joy,” 144.

Spenser, Edmund, Platonism in, 3, 5, 7, 21, 22, 31, 35, 39, 117, 218,
220;
his idea of beauty, 4, 32, 33, 65, 66;
his idea of justice, 27;
his idea of temperance, 23, 24, 25;
his idea of virtue, 27, 29;
his idea of a gentleman, 29;
his idea of love, 31, 108;
his idea of heavenly love, 75;
his æsthetics, 109–117;
identifies beloved with idea of beauty, 130, 136;
on his hymns, 139;
his idea of matter, 212;
his world weariness, 216.

Stanley, Thomas, 158.

Suckling, John, 161.

Sylvanus, 6.

“Symposium,” on wisdom, 8;
its dialectic 8, 75;
on beauty of mind, 31;
on nativity of love, 68, 120;
interpreted by Ficino, 107, 140;
on generation and immortality, 119, 120.

“Teares on the Death of Mœliades,” 87, 88.

Temperance, Plato’s idea of, 12, 13, 14, 23;
Spenser’s idea of, 23, 24, 25;
and justice, 28;
connection with heavenly grace, 62.

“Temple of Love,” 156.

“Theologia Germanica,” 168.

θνμός, 13.

“Timæus,” on creation, 70;
on Creator, 110;
on flux, 211, 212.

“To Amoret. Walking in a Starry Evening,” 132.

“To Cinthia, Converted,” 159.

“To Cinthia, coying it,” 159.

“To Cloris, a Rapture,” 161.

“To Lucasta, Going beyond the Seas,” 161.

“To my Mistress in Absence,” 161.

“To the Countess of Huntingdon,” 149, 151, 163.

“To the Platonicke Pretender,” 159.

“To the World. The Perfection of Love,” 147.

Trinity, The, identified with Plotinian hypostases, 168–174;
its unity, 176.

Una, identified with σοφία, and ἀρετή, 2;
identified with truth, 2, 3;
guides Red Cross Knight to Fidelia’s school, 3;
presented as true beauty, 3–10.

“Urania,” 88.

“Valediction Forbidding Mourning,” 145.

Vaughan, Henry, his idea of love, 132, 133, 148;
his idea of Platonic love, 158;
his idea of preëxistence, 203.

Virtue, Plato’s idea of, 27;
a manifold of graces, 27;
its beauty, 127;
identified with woman, 163.

Vision, beatific, described as rest, 87;
as joy, 88.

Wisdom, the highest beauty, 4;
beauty of, 4, 10;
seen only by soul, 8;
sight of, quickening imagination, 10, 11;
identified with heavenly beauty, 73;
subject of “Hymne of Heavenly Beautie,” 73, 74.

“Wishes, The,” 138.

“World, The,” 206, 207, 208, 210.

Woman, her inward beauty, 31;
attraction of, 162;
identified as virtue, 163;
as universal soul, 164.

Zephon, 59, 60.

-----

Footnote 1:

Cf. Pub. of Mod. Lang. Ass. of Amer., 1897, p. 177, “Spenser’s
Imitations from Ariosto.”

Footnote 2:

Masson, Life of Milton, I. 600.

Footnote 3:

Milton, Prose Works, I. 225.

Footnote 4:

ll. 470–475 are taken from “Phædo,” 81: “And this corporeal element,
my friend, is heavy and weighty and earthy, and is that element of
sight by which a soul is depressed and dragged down again into the
visible world, because she is afraid of the invisible and of the world
below—prowling about tombs and sepulchres, near which, as they tell
us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions of souls which have not
departed pure, but are cloyed with sight, and therefore visible.”

Footnote 5:

Lib. 3. fol. 313 recto.

Footnote 6:

Besides paraphrasing “Phædo,” 110–111 in ll. 111–136, Drummond repeats
the argument given in that dialogue to prove the probable existence of
such a world. Cf. ll. 141–170 with “Phædo,” 109.—“But we who live in
these hollows [of earth] are deceived into the notion that we are
dwelling on the surface of the earth; which is just as if a creature
who was at the bottom of the sea were to fancy that he was on the
surface of the water and that the sea was the heaven through which he
saw the sun and the other stars, he having never come to the surface
by reason of his feebleness and sluggishness, and having never lifted
up his head and seen, nor ever heard from one who had seen, how much
purer and fairer the world above is than his own.... [But] if any man
could arrive at the exterior limit [of the atmosphere], or take the
wings of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish who puts his
head out of water and sees this world, he would see a world beyond.”

Footnote 7:

This idea of catching the truth of a thing at two removes and the
reference to a true and painted chair are reminiscences of Plato’s
discussion of imitative art, and his figure of the three beds.
(“Republic” X, 597–599.)

Footnote 8:

“Puritan and Anglican Studies,” Edward Dowden, pp. 29–30.

Footnote 9:

Walton, “Life of Herbert,” pp. 386, 396.

Footnote 10:

Poems of Shakespeare. Ed. George Wyndham, p. cxxii.

Footnote 11:

“Poems of Lord Herbert of Cherbury,” ed. John Churton Collins, p. 24.

Footnote 12:

Howell’s “Letters,” Bk. I, sect. 6, let. XV.

Footnote 13:

“Lustra Ludovicii,” p. 26. London, 1646.

Footnote 14:

“An Account of Plato’s Ideas, and of Platonic Love.” “Miscellanies,”
pp. 355–364.

Footnote 15:

“An Essay on Love,” p. 275.

Footnote 16:

“The Ephesian and Cimmerian Matrons,” 1668.

Footnote 17:

“A Treatise of Seraphic Love.” Advertisements to the Reader, p. 12.

Footnote 18:

“Poems, with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished, 1646.” Preface.

Footnote 19:

Works, ed. Grosart, I. 112–123.

Footnote 20:

Works, ed. A. H. Bullen, p. 124.

Footnote 21:

“Ben Jonson’s Conversations with William Drummond,” p. 3.
Shakespeare’s Soc. Pub. v. 8.

Footnote 22:

Works, ed. Saintsbury, xi. 124, note.

Footnote 23:

“Life of Henry More,” Richard Ward, p. 12.

Footnote 24:

“Psychozoia.” To the Reader.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected palpable typographical errors; retained non-standard spellings and dialect. 2. Reindexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 4. Denoted superscripts by a caret before a single superscript character, e.g. M^r.