Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: "MUTABILITY" Little is known of the history of the fragment called "Mutability." The fragment was first published in 1609, ten years after the poet's death. It then appeared under the following title, which all editors have retained: " Two Cantos of Mutability: Which, both for Forme and Matter, appeare to be parcell of some following Booke of the Faerie Queene, under the legend of Constansie. Never before imprinted." Not another word of explanation was given. The fragment has been a puzzle to editors. Dr. Grosart in his biography of Spenser, Volume I of his nine-volume edition of Spenser's works, speaks of it as "fragments" which show that Spenser had started on a "second six" books, to round out the proposed twelve. Thus he makes it a part of the Faerie Queene, and seems to expect to find other fragments. But by the time he has reached Volume VIII of his massive edition, and is ready to print the fragment, he has changed his mind. He now prefixes to the Two Cantos on Mutability the following note: It is doubtful whether they were meant to form part of the Faery Queene. They make a charming independent poem on " Mutability "—one of Spenser's favorite themes. Professor Child contents himself with printing them under the heading, "Book VII( ?)." The Oxford edition disposes of the whole matter in a single sentence. It says simply: "The fragmentary Book VII appeared first in the Folio of 1609." Professor Dodge says that the best reason for thinking that the fragment was intended to form part of the Faerie Queene is found in stanza 37 of the first of the "Two Cantos."1 Besides the matter of its relation to Aristotle, there are, then, other interesting questions connected with "Mutability." Was it written as an independent poem? If not, where does it belong? Was it intend...