Forest of Rosscndale. 93 



that is not dispelled until we can associate therewith the presence 

 of our own species. 



In the person of its Greaves, we may be said to have the pedi- 

 gree of the Forest of Rossendale. And how much of real interest 

 we feel in being able to point to those of them who were contem- 

 poraneous with the Virgin Queen, and the galaxy of gifted minds 

 which adorned her court, and shed an undying radiance around 

 the years of her reign ; with Burleigh, her judicious adviser ; and 

 with the accomplished Essex, her unfortunate favourite. Contem- 

 porary, too, with Lord Bacon, 



" The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 



and with the chivalrous Sidney, " the very diamond of her Majes- 

 ty's Court." Administrators of the affairs of the Forest when Sir 

 Francis Drake was " singeing the Spanish monarch's beard ;" and 

 when Raleigh, patriot, statesman, and philosopher, was pining in 

 his lone dungeon in the Tower. When Spenser, the sweetest of 

 poets, was singing of the heavenly Una and her milk-white lamb ;(<?) 

 and when Shakespeare was weaving the immortal creations of his 

 genius. Witnesses, too, of, and doubtless participators in, the excite- 

 ment of the times consequent on the hourly-expected arrival of 

 the great Spanish Armada, which was to uproot Protestantism 

 from the land, and snuft" out the candle of English liberty ; who 

 lighted the beacon signals which summoned the country to arms ; 

 and who shartd in the rejoicings which followed the discomfiture 

 of the invading hosts. 



(e) It will not be considered out of place here to refer to the fact, established 

 on good authority, that Edmund Spenser was of the Spensers of Hurstwood, 

 near Burnley, and that he lived there for some time. Such being the 

 case, it is not unlikely that the name, and probably the district of Rossen- 

 dale, would be familiar to the poet. Whether this latter conjecture be true 

 or not, it is interesting to be able to connect the author of the " Fairy Queen " 

 with our next door neighbours at the foot of Pendle Hill. Vide " Spenser 

 and his Poetry," by Geo. L. Craik, M.A. ; also a Paper by the late T. T. 

 Wilkinson, F.R.A.S., Burnley, read before the Lancashire and Cheshire 

 Historic Society. 



