Of him it is eminently true that
we may know him from his works. His poems are his best
biography. In the sketch of his life to be given here
his poems shall be our one great authority.
Footnotes
---------
{1} Compare 'Underneath this sable _hearse_, &c.'
{2} Works of William Drummond of Hawthornden.
Edinburgh, 1711, p. 225.
{3} _Annales_, ed. _Hearne_, iii. 783.
{4} _History of Elizabeth, Queen of England._ Ed.
1688, pp. 564, 565.
{5} Father
{6} _Theatrum Poet. Anglic._, ed. Brydges, 1800, pp.
148, 149.
CHAPTER I.
1552-1579.
FROM SPENSER'S BIRTH TO THE PUBLICATION OF THE
SHEPHEARD'S CALENDAR.
Edmund Spenser was born in London in the year 1552, or
possibly 1551. For both these statements we have
directly or indirectly his own authority. In his
_Prothalamion_ he sings of certain swans whom in a
vision he saw floating down the river 'Themmes,' that
At length they all to mery London came,
To mery London, my most kyndly nurse,
That to me gave this lifes first native sourse,
Though from another place I take my name,
An house of auncient fame.
A MS. note by Oldys the antiquary in Winstanley's
_Lives of the most famous English Poets_, states that
the precise locality of his birth was East Smithfield.
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