SS Se Oe eee ee 
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97 
EDMUND SPENSER, THE POET’S POET. 
By Rev. A. W. FOX, M.A, 24th February, 1903. 
The Lecturer said he hoped to make clear the rank in which 
he held this great poet, Edmund Spenser—a rank above that of 
John Milton, while in wealth and variety of his imagery, in his 
own line, he was as great a poet as Shakespeare was in his. In 
1552, according to Aubrey, that genial, graceful, gossiping old 
writer, there was born into the house of the merchant tailor, 
John Spenser, Edmund, destined to be one of the greatest of 
poets. His mother was named Elizabeth ; his wife was named 
Elizabeth, and his Queen was named Elizabeth; and in various 
poems he alludes to this striking coincidence. The Educational 
National Biography makes no hesitation in stating that, although 
Spenser was educated in the Merchant Taylors’ School, in which 
Bishop Andrews, ‘‘ the saintliest man of the English Church ” 
was educated, and somewhere about the same time, it does not 
scruple to say that Spenser visited Hurstwood when he left the 
University, and spent a certain year there which he has described 
faithfully in ‘‘ The Shepherd’s Calendar.” 
At Hurstwood, there were in the old house a certain Edmund 
Spenser and a John Spenser, and they held up their heads with 
the Towneleys, whose house was hard by. The Spensers 
in the neighbourhood—Edmund, Lawrence, Robert, and 
John—all lived at Habergham Eaves. The theory is that 
_Jobn Spenser, who went to live in London, was the son of 
Edmund Spenser, who was at Hurstwood; if he was not the 
son he wasa nephew. Joln Spenser, of Downham and Whalley, 
and others, were related by marriage to Dean Howell. 
The poet at Cambridge received money from Robert Howell. 
When Spenser went to Cambridge he was a “ sizar’”’—he had to 
black boots and assist in clearing the table and wait on the rest 
of the students ; that was what being a ‘‘ sizar,” meant in those 
days. He was seventeen years of age when admitted as a 
 sizar” at Pembroke College, ; 
