of a rude style of speech under which the writer might express his opinions on various topics with less risk than he could in current language, and partly due to the pleasure which he finds in the words themselves, as explained in "E. K.'s" introductory letter. This is characteristic of youth. The case of Chatterton (who did not live to complete eighteen years) is similar, and lends support to the view which I have expressed that the writer of the "Calender" was very young.

CHAPTER II

SPENSER'S LIFE

THE facts, or conjectures, relating to Spenser's life are very completely stated in the biographical memoir by Professor Hales in the "Globe" edition of Spenser's Works.1 It will be observed that the "life" has been constructed mainly out of inferences drawn from the poems, and that where the external sources of information present difficulties they are discarded in favour of what is taken for internal evidence.2 This is an arbitrary method, but without it no "biography" (on the accepted view of the poet's identity) would be possible.

Let us look at the information from external sources (as given in the memoir above mentioned) which has been discarded as inadmissible. It consists of four instances where a "Spenser" is mentioned in contemporary records :

:

1. An "Edmund Spenser," of Kingsbury, Warwickshire, is "mentioned in the books of the Treasurer of the Queen's Chamber in 1569 as paid for bearing letters from Sir Henry Norris, her Majesty's ambassador in France, to the Queen" (p. xvii).

2. "In a work called Tragical Tales, published in 1587, there is a letter in verse, dated 1569, addressed to 'Spencer' by George Turberville, then resident in Russia as secretary to

1 See also the article in the Dictionary of National Biography by the same writer, jointly with the Editor.

2 "Our external sources of information are, then, extremely scanty. Fortunately our internal sources are somewhat less meagre. No poet ever more emphatically lived in his poetry than did Spenser. . . . His poems are his best biography. In the sketch of his life to be given here his poems shall be our one great authority." Extract, "Globe" edition of Works, p. xv.

the English ambassador, Sir Thomas Randolph. Anthony à Wood says this Spencer was the poet; but it can scarcely have been so (p. xx).

3. "On the strength of an entry found in the register of St. Clement Danes Church in the Strand—' 26 Aug. (1587) Florenc Spenser, the daughter of Edmond Spenser'-it has been conjectured that the poet was married before 1587. This conjecture seems entirely unacceptable "1 (p. xxiii).

4. "A 'Maister Spenser' mentioned in a letter written by James VI. of Scotland from St. Andrews in 1583 to Queen Elizabeth," who was carrying despatches. "It may be presumed that this gentleman is the same" as the Spenser of Kingsbury mentioned above (p. xxxii).

Now the first incontestable fact in Spenser's life is his appointment as Secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton in Ireland in August 1580. By this I mean that it is a fact not derived from an inference from the poems but from records of the time; and here for the first time is a man who can be identified, with certainty, as the author, or pretended author, of the poems. According to the accepted view Spenser was at that time about twentyeight, and he is supposed to have been identified (as explained in Chapter I., see p. I, note 2) as having been at Cambridge until he was twenty-four. What little is known of his doings in the interval comes from inferences from writings connected with "Immerito." From these it appears that he was for some time in the north of England, and by 1579, perhaps earlier, in the households of Sir Henry Sidney in Kent and the Earl of Leicester in London. He appears as a poet and engaged, during as much time as he could find from duties of attendance, etc., in literary pursuits.

There was no regular "Civil Service" in those days, and only men who possessed wealth, or who obtained it by favour of the sovereign, could aspire to high office. They employed their own "servants," who were retainers 1 The Sonnets are held to indicate 1594 as the year of Spenser's marriage. 2 Inference from Sonnet 60

in the great households.

The fact therefore that Lord

Grey should have chosen a secretary outside the ranks of his own men is important, as it suggests that there were special circumstances. They are not difficult to see. Lord Grey was sent to Ireland by the Queen at a critical time to deal with the state of things arising out of the Desmond rebellion, which for the moment had been crushed by Pelham and Ormonde, but the Earl of Desmond was still at large with a considerable following, other parts of Ireland were in revolt, and a combined invasion by Spain and the Pope was expected.1 The Queen, however, was being pressed at that time in the affairs of the Netherlands, and as regards Ireland her main anxiety was to spend as little money as possible. She is charged with having all but ruined Sir Henry Sidney, and Lord Grey, who accepted the appointment of Lord Deputy with great reluctance, had every reason to expect similar treatment unless he could speedily find means to put an end to hostilities. It is reasonable to suppose that in those circumstances, knowing nothing of Ireland himself, he would have been glad to take a secretary who had experience of the country; and there was no one to whom he would be so likely to go for such a man as to Sir Henry Sidney, the late Lord Deputy.2 Sir Henry Sidney then, it may be supposed, recommended Edmund Spenser, not, however, as a promising writer, but as the most experienced man he had for the post.

1 Sir Henry Sidney was recalled in September 1578. There was an interregnum during which Sir William Pelham carried on the government as a Lord Justice, and Lord Grey arrived as Lord Deputy in Dublin on the 12th August 1580.

2 Early in 1580 Lord Grey was in frequent consultation with Sir Henry Sidney, who visited him at his home. Dictionary of National Biography.

There is a letter in Collins's State Papers from Sir Henry Sidney at Denbigh to Lord Grey in Dublin, dated 17th September 1580, giving him advice how to proceed in Ireland. In the course of it he recommends various men in Ireland by name, mostly old servants of his, for secret intelligence and other services, and wishes to be remembered to them. He also says that "if Philip Sidney were in your Place, who most ernestlie and often hath spoken and writen to doe this louinge Office, he I saie shold haue no more of me than I moste willinglie will wright to you from Tyme to Tyme," and he signs himself "Your Lordships ancient Allie, lovinge Companion, and faithfull Frend, H. Sydney."

But if the author of the Shepheards Calender was this man, when did he get his experience, and why should the loquacious "E. K.," who is so intimate with the poet, give no hint of this Irish service? Similarly in the two letters of "Immerito" (reprinted at pp. 706-709 of the "Globe" edition) there is no suggestion of any experience of the kind. There is, however, a passage in the View of the State of Ireland where "Irenaeus" mentions something which he himself saw at an execution at Limerick, from which it might reasonably be inferred that Spenser was with Sir Henry Sidney in Ireland, as the execution referred to took place in his time (July 1577).

This is one of the inadmissible pieces of evidence-or at least one of the difficulties. But the passage evidently might apply to Spenser, the official, for the reasons above given; also because it hardly seems likely that the real author of this work (with which I shall deal later) would have been so unguarded as to put the words into the mouth of " Irenaeus"—who is clearly intended to stand for the author of the piece-unless Spenser had been in Ireland at the time. Moreover it appears that

there was a vague tradition in the time of Milton of Spenser having served in Ireland under Sir Henry Sidney; see the passage from the Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum by Milton's nephew, Edward Phillips, at p. xiv of Mr. Hales's Memoir.

"Spenser" (or "Spencer ") is, of course, not an uncommon name, but it is curious that in the scanty records of the time there should be two "Edmund Spensers." Yet there is nothing incredible in this, and it is clear that the Spenser who carried dispatches in 1569 could not have been the Spenser who was at the Merchant Taylors' School during part of that year. Collier conjectured that the former may have been the poet's father, but this is nothing but a guess, unsupported by any

1 Cf. p. 1, note 2. The reader is reminded that the identification of this Spenser with the poet does not rest on any early tradition, which merely relates that the poet was an "alumnus" of Cambridge (Camden's Annals, published 1615-1625), and "brought up in Pembroke-hall in Cambridge (Fuller's Worthies, published 1662).

D