time of Spenser's arrival in London in 1589, Shakspere
was already occupying a notable position in his
profession as an actor; and what is more important,
there can be little doubt he was already known not only
as an actor, but as a play-writer. What he had already
written was not comparable with what he was to write
subsequently; but even those early dramas gave promise
of splendid fruits to be thereafter yielded. In 1593
appeared _Venus and Adonis_; in the following year
_Lucrece_; in 1595, Spenser's _Epithalamion_; in 1596,
the second three books of the _Faerie Queene_; in 1597
_Romeo and Juliet_, _King Richard the Second_, and
_King Richard the Third_ were printed, and also Bacon's
_Essays_ and the first part of Hooker's _Ecclesiastical
Polity_. During all these years various plays, of
increasing power and beauty, were proceeding from
Shakspere's hands; by 1598 about half of his extant
plays had certainly been composed. Early in 1599, he,
who may be said to have ushered in this illustrious
period, he whose radiance first dispersed the darkness
and made the day begin to be, our poet Spenser, died.
But the day did not die with him; it was then but
approaching its noon, when he, one of its brightest
suns, set. This day may be said to have fully broken
in the year 1590, when the first instalment of the
great work of Spenser's life made its appearance.
The three books were dedicated to the Queen. They
were followed in the original edition--are preceded in
later editions--first, by the letter to Raleigh above
mentioned; then by six poetical pieces of a