bread in those days, his pride of birth was humbled in seeking the
patronage of nobles:

Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
What hell it is in suing long to bide: ...
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.

To the liberality of a patron he owed his education at Cambridge.
It was then the heyday of Renaissance studies, and Spenser steeped
himself in Greek, Latin and Italian literatures. Everything that
was antique was then in favor at the universities; there was a
revival of interest in Old-English poetry, which accounts largely
for Spenser's use of obsolete words and his imitation of Chaucer's
spelling.

After graduation he spent some time in the north of England,
probably as a tutor, and had an unhappy love affair, which he
celebrated in his poems to Rosalind. Then he returned to London,
lived by favor in the houses of Sidney and Leicester, and through
these powerful patrons was appointed secretary to Lord Grey de
Wilton, the queen's deputy in Ireland.

[Illustration: EDMUND SPENSER]

[Sidenote: SPENSER'S EXILE]

From this time on our poet is represented as a melancholy Spenser's
"exile," but that is a poetic fiction. At that time Ireland, having
refused to follow the Reformation, was engaged in a desperate