matters, was by no means for the best. Harvey was some
three or four years the senior, and of some academic
distinction. Probably he may be taken as something
more than a fair specimen of the average scholarship
and culture given by the universities at that time. He
was an extreme classicist; all his admiration was for
classical models and works that savoured of them; he it
was who headed the attempt made in England to force
upon a modern language the metrical system of the
Greeks and Latins. What baneful influence he exercised
over Spenser in this last respect will be shown
presently. Kirke was Spenser's other close friend; he
was one year junior academically to the poet. He too,
as we shall see, was a profound admirer of Harvey.
After leaving the university in 1576, Spenser,
then, about twenty-four years of age, returned to his
own people in the North. This fact is learnt from his
friend 'E.K.'s' glosses to certain lines in the sixth
book of the _Shepheardes Calendar_. E.K. speaks 'of
the North countrye where he dwelt,' and 'of his
removing out of the North parts and coming into the
South.' As E.K. writes in the spring of 1579, and as
his writing is evidently some little time subsequent to
the migration he speaks of, it may be believed that
Spenser quitted his Northern home in 1577, and, as we
shall see, there is other evidence for this
supposition. About a year then was passed in the North
after he left the University.
These years were not spent idly. The poetical
fruits of them shall be mentioned presently. What made