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wrote slightingly of everything not demonstrable by absolute 

 proof; apparently she had never heard of circumstantial evidence. 

 Dr. Grosart perhaps paid more attention to Miss Fishwick than her 

 hasty and ill-considered strictures merited. Miss Fishwick said 

 that by the "middle region of our Alps," Cumberland might be 

 meant, but that county is not connected in any way with the poet. 



The description of Spenser's country given by Harvev, " the 

 high hills of our English Alps," was in keeping with that of the 

 old writers. The monk Eichard of Cirencester, states that the 

 first station on the Eoman road from Eibcb ester to ^ork was on 

 the Pennine Alps — the chain of mountains between Lancashire 

 and Yorkshire. Camden, in the Britannia, has a similar expres- 

 sion ; and Thoresby, the antiquary, on a visit to Towneley in 

 1702, spoke of Peudle as " one of the most prominent hills of 

 our Appenine." Dr. Whitaker speaks of the British Appeuiue 

 between the Mersey and the Bay of Morecambe. It will thus be 

 seen that from the 14th to the 19th century these hills have been 

 called the " Eughsh Appenine " or " Pennine Alps." Take the map 

 showing the mountains of the Pennine chain, extending fi-om 

 Derbyshire to Cross Fell, and it will be found that Boalsworth 

 and Pendle are exactly in the middle. When Harvey said middle 

 he meant middle. How could the situation have been more clearly 

 indicated? Here was the settlement of the clan of Spensers, 

 several of them with the same Christian name as well as the 

 same surname as the poet. The name Spenser was just as 

 plentiful here as it was scarce everywhere else on these rano-es. 



Mr. Abram mentioned that two years ago he re-read nearly the 

 whole of Spenser's poetry in quest of North-country j)hrases 

 and dialect words, and at the same time kept a look-out for 

 allusions to localities in the North of England where he dwelt 

 which might afford a hint or clue as to the place of his ancestral 

 habitation. It was rather disappointing that Spenser never wrote 

 about Lancashire, Pendle Forest, Burnley or any other locahties 

 likely to have been his youthful haunts. 



In the fourth book of the Faerie Queene, Spenser writes of the 

 rivers of England ; he mentions the Thames, Severn, and other 

 rivers in the south ; he names also those in the east and in mid- 

 England ; the Tyne, the Tweed, and the Eden are referred to ; 

 many rivers in Yorkshire are enumerated, but the name of only 

 one Lancashire river is given — 



" These after came the stony shallow Lone, 

 That to old Loncaster his name doth lend." 



Why is there no mention of the Eibble, the Hodder, and the 

 Mersey ? It could not be the exigency of rhyme ; it must have 

 been that the poet, the courtier of Queen Bess, was ashamed to 

 declare his acquaintance and kinship with the uncouth yeomen of 

 the Lancashire wilds. The omission rather suggested a designed 



