Sonnets,' and this probably is near the truth. That is to say, that Spenser was born in one of the last two years of Edward VI.; that his infancy was passed during the dark days of Mary; and that he was about six years old when Elizabeth came to the throne. About the same time were born Ralegh, and, a year or two later (1554), Hooker and Philip Sidney. Bacon (1561), and Shakespere (1564), belong to the next decade of the century.

He was certainly a Londoner by birth and early training. This also we learn from himself, in the latest poem published in his life-time. It is a bridal ode (Prothalamion), to celebrate the marriage of two daughters of the Earl of Worcester, written late in 1596. It was a time in his life of disappointment and trouble, when he was only a rare visitor to London. In the poem he imagines himself on the banks of London's great river, and the bridal procession arriving at Lord Essex's house; and he takes occasion to record the affection with which he still regarded "the most kindly nurse" of his boyhood.

"Calm was the day, and through the trembling air
Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play,

A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay

Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair:
When I, (whom sullen care,

Through discontent of my long fruitless stay

In Princes Court, and expectation vain

Of idle hopes, which still do fly away,
Like empty shadows, did afflict my brain,)
Walkt forth to ease my pain

"Since the winged god his planet clear Began in me to move, one year is spent:

The which doth longer unto me appear

Than all those forty which my life outwent."

Sonnet LX., probably written in 1593 or 1594.

Along the shore of silver-streaming Thames;
Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems,
Was painted all with variable flowers,

And all the meads adorned with dainty gems
Fit to deck maidens' bowers,

And crown their paramours

Against the bridal day, which is not long:
Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

At length they all to merry London came,
To merry London, my most kindly nurse,
That to me gave this life's first native source,
Though from another place I take my name,
A house of ancient fame.

There, when they came, whereas those bricky towers
The which on Thames broad aged back do ride,
Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers,
There whilome wont the Templar Knights to bide,

Till they decayed through pride:

Next whereunto there stands a stately place,
Where oft I gained gifts and goodly grace1

Of that great Lord, which therein wont to dwell;
Whose want too well now feels my friendless case;
But ah! here fits not well

Against the bridal day, which is not long:

Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song:

Yet therein now doth lodge a noble peer,2

Great England's glory and the wide world's wonder,
Whose dreadful name late through all Spain did thunder,
And Hercules two pillars, standing near,

Did make to quake and fear.

Fair branch of honour, flower of chivalry!

That fillest England with thy triumph's fame,
Joy have thou of thy noble victory,3

1 Leicester House, then Essex House, in the Strand.

2 Earl of Essex.

3 At Cadiz, June 21, 1596.

And endless happiness of thine own name

That promiseth the same.

That through thy prowess, and victorious arms,
Thy country may be freed from foreign harms;

And great Elisa's glorious name may ring

Through all the world, filled with thy wide alarms."

Who his father was, and what was his employment, we know not. From one of the poems of his later years we learn that his mother bore the famous name of Elizabeth, which was also the cherished one of Spenser's wife.

"My love, my life's best ornament,

By whom my spirit out of dust was raised."

But his family, whatever was his father's condition, certainly claimed kindred, though there was a difference in the spelling of the name, with a house then rising into fame and importance, the Spencers of Althorpe, the ancestors of the Spencers and Churchills of modern days. Sir John Spencer had several daughters, three of whom made great marriages. Elizabeth was the wife of Sir George Carey, afterwards the second Lord Hunsdon, the son of Elizabeth's cousin and Counsellor. Anne, first, Lady Compton, afterwards married Thomas Sackville, the son of the poet, Lord Buckhurst, and then Earl of Dorset. Alice, the youngest, whose first husband, Lord Strange, became Earl of Derby, after his death married Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper, Baron Ellesmere, and then Viscount Brackley. These three sisters are celebrated by him in a gallery of the noble ladies of the Court, under poetical names— "Phyllis, the flower of rare perfection;" "Charillis, the

1 Sonnet LXXIV.

2

2 Colin Clout's come Home again, 1. 536. Craik, Spenser, i. 9, 10.

pride and primrose of the rest;" and "Sweet Amaryllis, the youngest but the highest in degree." Alice, Lady Strange, Lady Derby, Lady Ellesmere and Brackley, and then again Dowager Lady Derby, the "Sweet Amaryllis" of the poet, had the rare fortune to be a personal link between Spenser and Milton. She was among the last whom Spenser honoured with his homage: and she was the first whom Milton honoured; for he composed his Arcades to be acted before her by her grandchildren, and the Masque of Comus for her son-in-law, Lord Bridgewater, and his daughter, another Lady Alice. With these illustrious sisters Spenser claimed kindred. To each of these he dedicated one of his minor poems; to Lady Strange, the Tears of the Muses; to Lady Compton, the Apologue of the Fox and the Ape, Mother Hubberd's Tale; to Lady Carey, the Fable of the Butterfly and the Spider, Muiopotmos. And in each dedication he assumed on their part the recognition of his claim.

"The sisters three,

The honour of the noble family,

Of which I meanest boast myself to be."

Whatever his degree of relationship to them, he could hardly, even in the days of his fame, have ventured thus publicly to challenge it, unless there had been some acknowledged ground for it. There are obscure indications, which antiquarian diligence may perhaps make clear, which point to East Lancashire as the home of the particular family of Spensers to which Edmund Spenser's father belonged. Probably he was, however, in humble circum

stances.

Edmund Spenser was a Londoner by education as well as birth. A recent discovery by Mr. R. B. Knowles, fur

ther illustrated by Dr. Grosart,' has made us acquainted with Spenser's school. He was a pupil, probably one of the earliest ones, of the grammar school, then recently (1560) established by the Merchant Taylors' Company, under a famous teacher, Dr. Mulcaster. Among the manuscripts at Townley Hall are preserved the account books of the executors of a bountiful London citizen, Robert Nowell, the brother of Dr. Alexander Nowell, who was Dean of St. Paul's during Elizabeth's reign, and was a leading person in the ecclesiastical affairs of the time. In these books, in a crowd of unknown names of needy relations and dependents, distressed foreigners, and parish paupers, who shared from time to time the liberality of Mr. Robert Nowell's representatives, there appear among the numerous "poor scholars" whom his wealth assisted, the names of Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes. And there, also, in the roll of the expenditure at Mr. Nowell's pompous funeral at St. Paul's in February, 1569, among long lists of unknown men and women, high and low, who had mourning given them, among bills for fees to officials, for undertakers' charges, for heraldic pageantry and ornamentation, for abundant supplies for the sumptuous funeral banquet, are put down lists of boys, from the chief London schools, St. Paul's, Westminster, and others, to whom two yards of cloth were to be given to make their gowns: and at the head of the six scholars named from Merchant Taylors' is the name of Edmund Spenser.

He was then, probably, the senior boy of the school, and in the following May he went to Cambridge. The Nowells still helped him: we read in their account books

1 See The Spending of the Money of Robert Nowell, 1568-1580: from the MSS. at Townley Hall. Edited by Rev. A. B. Grosart. 1877.