a letter written by James VI. of Scotland from St.
Andrews in 1583 to Queen Elizabeth: 'I have staied
Maister Spenser upon the letter quhilk is written with
my auin hand quhilk sall be readie within tua daies.'
It may be presumed that this gentleman is the same with
him of whose postal services mention is found, as we
have seen, in 1569. At any rate there is nothing
whatever to justify his identification with the poet.
On the other hand, there are several circumstances
which seem to indicate that Spenser was in Ireland
continuously from the year of his going there with Lord
Grey to the year of his visiting England with Raleigh
in 1589, when he presented to her Majesty and published
the first three books of the _Faerie Queene_. Whatever
certain glimpses we can catch of Spenser during these
ten years, he is in Ireland.
We have seen that he was holding one clerkship or
another in Ireland during all this time. In the next
place, we find him mentioned as forming one of a
company described as gathered together at a cottage
near Dublin in a work by his friend Lodovick{3}
Bryskett, written, as may be inferred with considerable
certainty, some time in or about the year 1582, though
not published till 1606. This work, entitled _A
Discourse of Civill Life; containing the Ethike part of
Morall Philosophie_, 'written to the right honorable
Arthur, late Lord Grey of Wilton'--written before his
recall in 1582--describes in the introduction a party
met together at the author's cottage near Dublin,
consisting of 'Dr. Long, Primate of Ardmagh; Sir Robert