England Spenser knew, the ecclesiastical controversies
raging when he revisited England, may partly account
for his despondent tone with reference to literature.
He introduces each Muse weeping for the neglect and
contempt suffered by her respective province. He who
describes these tears was himself destined to dry them;
and Shakspere, who, if anyone, was to make the faces of
the Muses blithe and bright, was now rapidly
approaching his prime. There can be little doubt that
at a later time Spenser was acquainted with Shakspere;
for Spenser was an intimate friend of the Earl of
Essex; Shakspere was an intimate friend of the Earl of
Southampton, who was one of the most attached friends
of that Earl of Essex. And a personal acquaintance
with Shakspere may have been one of the most memorable
events of Spenser's visit to London in 1589. We would
gladly think that Thalia in the _Teares of the Muses_
refers in the following passage to Shakspere: the comic
stage, she says, is degraded,

And he the man whom Nature selfe had made
To mock herselfe and Truth to imitate,
With kindly counter under Mimick shade,
Our pleasant Willy, ah! is dead of late;
With whom all joy and jolly meriment
Is also deaded and in dolour drent.

The context shows that by 'dead' is not meant physical
death, but that