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avoiclauce than want of knowledge of the district or iuabiUty to 

 weave his phrases so as to bring in Lancashire names. Spenser 

 had his weaknesses, and one was that when he had attained 

 literary eminence and associated with men of distinction on 

 equal terms he was asliamed probably to declare his origin or to 

 let it be known or spoken ot in courtly circles that his progenitors 

 were simply yeomen farmers in an out-of-the-way nook of Lan- 

 cashire, whose inhabitants were believed to be particularly un- 

 mannerly and boorish. 



Having noticed the several ascertained facts respecting the 

 Poet Spenser adduced hitherto by those who are convinced that his 

 family belonged to the local clan of Spensers, in support of that 

 conclusion, Mr. Abram referred as follows to one other matter 

 not yet touched upon by previous investigators, which might be 

 found to have some bearing upon this inquiry : — It has been 

 known in Burnley for some years that a relic of the Spensers of 

 Hurstwood was preserved at Ormerod House. Mr. Angelo Wad- 

 dington mentioned in a note to the last edition of Whitaker's 

 Histortj of Whallei/ that " a curious carved panel is preserved at 

 Ormerod, containing the arms of ' " Spenser de Hurstwood.' " I 

 had long wished to see this panel, thinking it might tell us some- 

 thing respecting the status of that family and its relation to other 

 families of Spensers which bore arms. By the favour of Col. 

 Thursby, this heraldic panel is here this evening for inspection. 

 It will be observed that the panel is of good age, and that the 

 elaborate carving of the shield, supporting figure, and enclosing 

 arch is of the character seen on panels of cabinets and other 

 oaken furniture of the seventeenth century. I wish that I could 

 give you the history of the carving, but I do not know it. Pre- 

 sumably it was taken from Spenser's House at Hurstwood when 

 the house and land passed to the Ormerods, unless it has formed 

 one of a series of carved armorial bearings of local gentry con- 

 nected with the Ormerods made for the ornamentation of a 

 panelled room ia the old Hall of Ormerod. The panel is without 

 date, but belongs, I think, to the time of James I, or Charles I. 

 Before it was executed, some member of the Spensers of Hurst- 

 wood must have borne these arms, by grant from Heralds' College. 

 Edmund Spenser of Hurstwood, son of Jolni, both contemporary 

 with the poet, may have used the arms. He was warden of 

 Burnley Church in 1617 and later, and a man of mark in his 

 time. However that may be, there is the shield of arms of 

 Spensers of Hurstwood to bear its witness. And what is it ? 

 Why, that the present arms of Spencers of Althorp in North- 

 amptonshire, and these ancient arms of Spenser of Hurstwood, 

 are nearly identical. Nor is this a thing to be looked for, unless 

 the two families had branched fi-om the same stock. The arms 

 of the nearest family of Spencers — the Spencers of Bramley 



