A Biography of Edmund Spenser by John W. Hales
page 31 of 106 (29%)
page 31 of 106 (29%)
|
And ease of paine which cannot be recured.
And ye my fellow shepheards, which do see And heare the languors of my too long dying, Unto the world for ever witnesse bee That hers I die, nought to the world denying This simple trophe of her great conquest. This residence of Spenser in the North, which corresponds with that period of Milton's life spent at his father's house at Horton in Buckinghamshire, ended, as there has been occasion to state, in the year 1577. What was the precise cause of Spenser's coming South, is not known for certain. 'E.K.' says in one of his glosses, already quoted in part, that the poet 'for speciall occasion of private affayres (as I have bene partly of himselfe informed) and for his more preferment, removing out of the North parts, came into the South, as Hobbinoll indeede advised him privately.' It is clear from his being admitted at his college as a sizar, that his private means were not good. Perhaps during his residence in the North he may have been dependent on the bounty of his friends. It was then in the hope of some advancement of his fortunes that, bearing with him no doubt in manuscript certain results of all his life's previous labour, he turned away from his cold love and her glen, and all her country, and set his face Town-ward. It is said that his friend Harvey introduced him to that famous accomplished gentleman--that mirror of true knighthood--Sir Philip Sidney, and it would seem |
|