sloyalty,

ROBERT GREEN.

This author's works are chiefly these,

The Honourable History of Fryar Bacon, and Fryar Bungy; play'd by the
Prince of Palatine's servants. I know not whence our author borrowed
his plot, but this famous fryar Minor lived in the reign of Henry III.
and died in the reign of Edward I. in the year 1284. He joined with
Dr. Lodge in one play, called a Looking Glass for London; he writ also
the Comedies of Fryar Bacon and Fair Enome. His other pieces are, Quip
for an upstart Courtier, and Dorastus and Fawnia. Winstanley imputes
likewise to him the following pieces. Tully's Loves; Philomela, the
Lady Fitzwater's Nightingale; Green's News too Late, first and second
part; Green's Arcadia; Green's Farewel to Folly; Green's Groatsworth
of Wit.

It is said by Wood in his Fasti, p. 137, vol. i. that our author died
in the year 1592, of a surfeit taken by eating pickled herrings, and
drinking with them rhenish wine. At this fatal banquet, Thomas Nash,
his cotemporary at Cambridge was with him, who rallies him in his
Apology of Pierce Pennyless. Thus died Robert Green, whose end may
be looked upon as a kind of punishment for a life spent in riot and
infamy.

* * * * *

EDMUND SPENSER

was born in London, and educated at Pembroke Hall in Cambridge. The
accounts of the birth and family of this great man are but obscure and
imperfect, and at his first setting out into life, his fortune and
interest seem to have been very inconsiderable.

After he had for some time continued at the college, and laid that
foundation of learning, which, joined to his natural genius, qualified
him to rise to so great an excellency, he stood for a fellowship,
in competition with Mr. Andrews, a gentleman in holy orders, and
afterwards lord bishop of Winchester, in which he was unsuccessful.
This disappointment, joined with the narrowness of his circumstances,
forced him to quit the university [1]; and we find him next residing
at the house of a friend in the North, where he fell in love with his
Rosalind, whom he finely celebrates in his pastoral poems, and of
whose cruelty he has written such pathetical complaints.

It is probable that about this time Spenser's genius began first to
distinguish itself; for the Shepherd's Calendar, which is so full of
his unprosperous passion for Rosalind, was amongst the first of
his works of note, and the supposition is strengthened, by the
considerat