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The Neo-Platonic character of Spenser's Fowre Hymnes has been generally recognized, and probable sources for a great many of his ideas have been noted;1 but the fundamental conceptions underlying the structure of the whole composition have not been sufficiently recognized, and, as a result, the essential unity of theme, symmetry of plan, and climactic progression of the whole work have been either obscured or actually denied.2 It is the purpose of this paper to attempt to illustrate these qualities in Spenser's hymns by means of the philosophical documents to which they are most closely related. For this purpose the Canzona dello Amor celeste & divino of Girolamo Benivieni, with its accompanying Commento by Pico della Mirandola, is of the first importance. Professor J. B. Fletcher has already called attention to the probable indebtedness of Spenser's first two hymns to Benivieni's Canzona.3 But he has given very little attention to Pico's Commento, and his finding of the six steps of spiritual ascent, in Spenser, differs materially from mine. He considers that the last two hymns are not a retraction of the first two, but a sequel, or complement, in which the Neo-Platonism is overlaid by the theology of Calvin.4
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