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origiual ennobled liouse le Despenser were — Quarterly, argent and 

 fltiles, in the 2nd and 3rd quarters a fret or, over all a bend sable. 

 Thus both the Hiiistwoocl and Althorp Spensers' arms were just 

 those of the great Barons Despenser, with each a difference to 

 denote distinct branches. The Hnrstwood Spensers had not 

 copied the arms of the Althoi-p branch, but had gone to the 

 origiual som'ce, and had been authorised to bear a " differenced 

 coat"" from that of their assumed ancestors, the Despensers, the 

 veritable " house of ancient fame " of the Poet's oft-misread lines. 

 Summing up the data submitted and examined, Mr. Abram 

 in closing said that "the main points in the inquiry respectiuw 

 the family connections of the Poet Spenser which had been estab° 

 lished and remained unconfuted are the following: — 1. That 

 Edmund Spenser as a lad at Merchant Taylors' School, and as a 

 scholar at Cambridge, received several gratuities from the Bene- 

 faction of Eobert Nowell, at the hands of the Trustees, Dean 

 Nowell and John Towneley, all three of them natives of this 

 district, who also gave money to hundreds of persons in North- 

 East Lancashire, including a number of Spensers. 2. That 

 Spenser, on leaving his University, went to live -mth relatives 

 in the North of England, staying with them a year or more ; 

 that this place of abode was a region of high hills and wooded 

 glens ; that it was situated "in the middle region of the English 

 Alps," answering to the Pennine range, the " backbone of 

 England," the watershed of Lancashire, Yorkshire and one side 

 of Westmoreland ; and that his friend Gabriel Harvey wrote of 

 the country in which these mountains were as Spenser's shii-e. 

 3. That there existed at that time (1577) a clan of Spensers 

 inhabiting several homesteads in the very midst of the Pennine 

 Alps of England ; that amongst them the names of Edmund and 

 Lawrence, borne by the poet, his son and two or three descend- 

 ants, were remarkably common. That the best of these local 

 families of Spensers were of the rank of lesser gentiy, cultivating 

 their own fi'eehold ; bearing arms ; and that they spelt their sur- 

 name as the poet did, Spenser, not Spencer. 4. That the first 

 poem published by Spenser — the Shepherd's Caleyidar — written 

 during his sojourn in this northern region, was an allegory 

 grounded upon pastoral life amid rugged, gloomy, wood-skirted 

 moorlands ; that it was wiitteu in provincial English — the lan- 

 guage of the country-folk — and contains a vast number of dialect 

 words, which, though archaic in some instances, bear a general 

 resemblance as close, and closer, to tlie modern folk-speech of 

 the farmers and peasantry of North-East Lancashire than to that 

 of any other district of England, or even of Lancashii-e ; and that 

 his later works contain some hundreds of such words. 5. That 

 not merely the physical features and scenery of this region but 

 its social characteristics in the 16th century, notably the super. 



