98 
Young Spenser translated some of the Italian and Latin poems 
which appeared in the ‘Tears of the Muses.”’ He studied 
Latin, Greek, Italian, and French, and it was through reading 
* Ariosto”’ that his genius shaped itself in that remarkable 
poem, superior to ‘‘ Orlando Furioso ”—‘‘ The Faerie Queen.”’ 
In 1576, Spenser took his M.A. degree. His name is entered 
in the University register. ‘The date is of importance, because 
we can trace the resemblance in the handwriting in some of the 
books that had been in his possession. 
In 1577 there is a blank in his history. How was that filled 
up? When we come to read ‘‘ The Shepherd's Calendar’ we 
find that it contains two hundred words that were then in current 
use in the North; one hundred and fifty of these are still in 
use in the country round about Hurstwood. This is a very 
important point. ‘Those words in “ The Faerie Queen” had 
puzzled annotators and commentators. 
In 1577 Spenser was painted. Aubrey described him as a 
little man with a bare but beautiful head, wearing not a great, 
but a little ruff. 
In 1578 we find that in the Leicester household Spenser met 
his patron, Sir Philip Sydney, that Elizabethan nobleman, who 
inspired a poet greater than himself, a man no less holy and no 
less noble in his life, though it was not lived so much before the 
eye of the public. 
In 1579, two years after he had been in the North, appeared 
«The Shepherd’s Calendar.” It did not appear before, because 
there were traces of Edmund Spenser being sent on a mission to 
France, under Lord Leicester. As soon as the ‘ Shepherd’s 
Calendar’ appeared, with notes and a glossary by Edmund Kirk, 
it was realised that a new poet, of uncommon force, had broken 
the silence of the muses. Spenser was not out of Court favour, 
and he speaks in terms of praise of that very noble Archbishop, 
who fell into disgrace with Queen Elizabeth because he told her 
the truth. Spenser gave proof to Archbishop Grindall of his 
loyalty to truth, and it required no little courage in those days, 
when that good Queen used to speak her mind with oaths and 
curses, and would swear like a trooper, and yet was one of the 
best monarchs who had ruled over the land. 
For a while Spencer wasted his time, under the advice of 
Harvey, in writing limping, jingling, unmusical lines, to weld 
the fashion of the modern to the fashion of the old. At last he 
threw over this style of writing, and wrote in very good language, 
none the worse for a little Northern smack, and an occasional 
touch of the Lancashire dialect. 
