Whilst thou didst live, lived English poetry;
Now thou art dead, it fears that it shall die.'
The next notice is found in Drummond's account of
Ben Jonson's conversations with him in the year 1618:
'Spencer's stanzas pleased him not, nor his
matter. The meaning of the allegory of his Fairy Queen
he had delivered in writing to Sir Walter Rawleigh,
which was, "that by the Bleating Beast he understood
the Puritans, and by the false Duessa the Queen of
Scots." He told, that Spencer's goods were robbed by
the Irish, and his house and a little child burnt, he
and his wife escaped, and after died for want of bread
in King Street; he refused 20 pieces sent to him by my
lord Essex, and said he was sure he had no time to
spend them.'{2}
The third record occurs in Camden's _History of
Queen Elizabeth (Annales rerum Anglicarum et
Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha)_, first published in
a complete form in 1628. There the famous antiquary
registering what demises marked the year 1598 (our
March 25, 1598, to March 24, 1599), adds to his list
Edmund Spenser, and thus writes of him: 'Ed. Spenserus,
patria Londinensis, Cantabrigienis autem alumnus, Musis
adeo arridentibus natus ut omnes Anglicos superioris
{ae}vi Poetas, ne Chaucero quidem concive excepto,
superaret. Sed peculiari Poetis fato semper cum
paupertate conflictatus, etsi Greio Hiberni{ae} proregi
fuerit ab epistolis.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25