the authors of the time from Shakespere downward, and on the
jealousy of professional actors felt by scholars, and _vice versa_.

CHAPTER IV

"THE FAERIE QUEENE" AND ITS GROUP

"Velut inter ignes luna minores"

There is no instance in English history of a poet receiving such immediate
recognition, and deserving it so thoroughly, as did Edmund Spenser at the
date of _The Shepherd's Calendar_. In the first chapter of this volume the
earlier course of Elizabethan poetry has been described, and it will have
been seen that, with great intention, no very great accomplishment had been
achieved. It was sufficiently evident that a poetic language and a general
poetic spirit were being formed, such as had not existed in England since
Chaucer's death; but no one had yet arisen who could justify the
expectation based on such respectable tentatives. It seems from many minute
indications which need not be detailed here, that at the advent of _The
Shepherd's Calendar_ all the best judges recognised the expected poet. Yet
they could hardly have known how just their recognition was, or what
extraordinary advances the poet would make in the twenty years which passed
between its publication and his death.

The life of Spenser is very little known, and here and elsewhere the
conditions of this book preclude the reproduction or even the discussion of
the various pious attempts which have been made to supply the deficiency of
documents. The chief of these in his case is to be found in Dr. Grosart's
magnificent edition, the principal among many good works of its editor.
That he belonged to a branch--a Lancashire branch in all probability--of
the family which produced the Le Despensers of elder, and the Spencers of
modern English history, may be said to be unquestionable. But he appears to
have been born about 1552 in London, and to have been educated at Merchant
Taylors', whence in May 1569 he matriculated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge,
as a sizar. At or before this time he must have contributed (though there
are puzzles in the matter) certain translations of sonnets from Petrarch
and Du Bellay to a book called _The Theatre of Voluptuous Worldlings_,
published by a Brabanter, John van der Noodt. These, slightly changed from
blank verse to rhyme, appeared long afterwards with his minor poems of
1590. But the original pieces had been claimed by the Dutchman; and though
there are easy ways of explaining this, the thing is curious.