immediate origin. We can do no more than conjecture the Christian name of his father, and of his mother the furname has never been ascertained; that her first name was Elizabeth, we learn from the feventy-fourth fonnet of his "Amoretti ;" but to what rank of life fhe belonged, or where her family refided, not the flightest hint is given. In the fonnet referred to, Spenfer rejoices that the Chriftian name of the lady who, we apprehend, became his fecond wife (he did not marry her until the first three books of the "Faerie Queene" had been about four years published) was the fame as that of the Queen, and of his mother: he is fpeaking of the "moft happy letters" forming "Elizabeth," and belonging to three perfons especially dear to him: "The firft my being to me gave by kind, From mother's womb deriv'd by dew defcent; Vol. v. p. 154. Prefuming, as there is fome reafon to believe, that his father's names were like his own, and his mother's Christian name certainly Elizabeth, we may likewife prefume that after their marriage they fettled in London in the first instance, where their fon Edmund Spenfer was born in 1552. It has generally been too pofitively affirmed that this event took place in Eaft Smithfield, near the Tower, then by no means a part of the metropolis uninhabited by perfons of rank and refpectability; but this fact depends folely upon a manufcript note, by a diftinguished biographical antiquary of the last century, He had a fifter, Sarah, but whether older or younger than himself does not clearly appear. He generously provided for her out of the "large richeffe" that the Queen gave him in 1586, or not long afterwards, viz. the lands, &c. in the neighbourhood of Cork. k in a copy of a work in itself of little authority. In oppofition to this statement, we may mention that all search hitherto made, for an entry of the birth of Spenfer, in parish registers in that district of the town, has failed to obtain the required information.' In the hope of procuring fome clue to the marriage of the elder Edmund Spenfer, with his wife Elizabeth, or to the birth of their children, we carried our investigations farther weft; but, although we traced nothing, on those points, that we thought might poffibly have escaped a hasty examination, we were furprised to meet with a memorandum which, we have fome reason to think, establishes a fact in the poet's history that has never before been fufpected. Todd, and other biographers have argued that, when Edmund Spenfer married, about five years before his death, he was a bachelor." Of this we entertain grave doubts, not merely because it is unlikely that a man of fuch a delicate and fufceptible mind would remain fingle until he was more than forty, but because, in the registers of St. Clement Danes, in the Strand (which have, often and often, been examined in the hope of discovering matters of the fort), we met with an entry of the baptifm of an infant, who is named Florence, and who is recorded as the daughter of Edmund Spenfer. It stands in the book, among the baptisms for the year 1587, precifely in this form : * Oldys' MS. notes, in a copy of Winftanley's "Lives of the moft famous English Poets," 8vo. 1687. Mr. G. Chalmers formerly earnestly promoted an examination of thefe records, when it was discovered either that they had not been kept, or that they had been destroyed by the great fire, excepting in a comparatively few inftances: fince then, inquiries of the fame kind have been twice inftituted, (once within the last few months, and with reference to this work,) but with fimilarly unfavourable results. m "That Spenfer was a bachelor before he was married to this perfon (his wife Elizabeth, celebrated in Book vi. C. 10, of the 'Faerie Queene') I am perfuaded," &c. TODD's Life of Spenfer, vol. i. P. cxii. "26 Auguft [1587]. Florenc Spenfer, the daughter of Edmond."" That she was a legitimate daughter we can hardly doubt, fince nothing to the contrary (as was then ufually the cafe°) is stated on the face of the register; and if the child had been base-born fhe would probably have borne her mother's furname. We are to recollect alfo that St. Clement Danes was a moft likely parifh for Spenfer to refide in; for there, at the bottom of what is ftill called Effex Street, his young friend and patron, Robert Devereux, had a large manfion and gardens: the Lords Grey of Wilton also lived in the fame neighbourhood. Another circumftance to be taken into account " Our first hint upon this curious point was derived from Mr. Peter Cunningham, and we have fince ourfelves carefully examined the regiftration, which is remarkable because it omits the final e in "Florence." The furname of the father is always added to the Christian name of the child in the entries of the year preceding, we obferved the baptifm of the daughter, Elizabeth, of a man of confiderable note in his day, Chidiock Tichbourne, who, it will be remembered, was executed, in the very year in which his child was born, for his fhare in Babbington's confpiracy: the Editor has a broadfide ballad by Deloney upon the event. Tichbourne was a poet and the friend of poets, though we never meet with his name in connection with Spenfer. • As in the inftance of Edward Shakespeare, the actor (a name new in our dramatic hiftory) it is recorded, in the Register of St. Giles, Cripplegate, that his child Edward was bafe-born."-Life of Shakespeare (Whittaker and Co.), 1858, vol. i. p. 185. the P It was from this houfe that the Earl of Effex took his departure on 8th Feb, 1600-1, when he broke out into what was called " rebellion" against Elizabeth. The Register of St. Clement Danes, under that date and two days afterwards, contains fome remarkable entries upon subject. We find there recorded the killing of Captain Owen Salisbury, one of Effex's boldest and oldest retainers, and of a "footman" of the Earl of Southampton. Oppofite their names the following fingular note is placed, and it is a folitary example of the kind :-- "These were flayn: fadd and heavy day was the 8 of Feb: whereof those two fyrst named had no folemnity of buriall, fave by tombling into the ground.-[A name is here illegibly erafed] was flayn in ftreet, but buryed in St Andrewes." In the rebinding of the volume part of the note was cut away, but the unnamed street was in all probability Fleet Street. Owen Salisbury had served under Effex at Cadiz and in Ireland, if not in Flanders. is the name given to the infant: Florence was not only fuch a name as Spenfer, with his Italian and poetical affociations, would be likely to choose, but it was a name which had been long known in the family of the patron, with whom Spenser, seven years before, had gone to Ireland in the capacity of secretary. Florence was the name of the wife of Edmund, Lord Grey of Wilton, who died in 1511, and we may well believe that it continued a favourite appellation during the next generations. Although nothing is added in the register (as was sometimes done) refpecting the godfather or godmothers on the occafion, it is not by any means impoffible, that fome of the Grey or Devereux family stood at the font as fponfors for Florence Spenfer. We are, therefore, ftrongly of opinion that the poet was a husband, and had a daughter in 1587, having married after his return to London with Arthur, Lord Grey, at the conclufion of his government of Ireland. The unexpected discovery of this entry, and the wish to show how careleffly these curious fources of knowledge are often inspected, have led us to anticipate a little what ought properly to come afterwards, and will be mentioned in its place in the progress of our memoir. In order to ascertain with our own eyes whether there really exists no record of the birth and baptism of an Edmund Spenfer, in the middle of the fixteenth century, we have gone through the drudgery of turning over the leaves of very many church-registers, in different parts both of the town and country: excepting in the folitary instance just noticed, we have met with no memorandum of the kind relating to any Edmund Spenfer, during the whole fifty years which preceded the demise of Queen Elizabeth. Spenfer was not a very common name, but ftill we have feen it in connection with Gabriel, Edward, and James, though never once preceded by Edmund; and this fact of itself shows that the combination, Edmund Spenfer, was very unusual. Of course, there are many fuch fources of information which it has not been in our power to infpect; and it fo happens that, in not a few cafes, as regards facred edifices within the limits of the City of London, the registers were deftroyed by the great fire of 1666. It is to be recollected also that Spenfer was born not long after the keeping of fuch documents was rendered imperative; and even then, years often elapfed before any great regularity in this refpect was observed, or could be enforced. We have furmised that the poet received the first part of his education in Warwickshire; and in the fame year that we hear of his father (as indeed he may have been) at Kingsbury, the fon was removed, as we have stated, to Cambridge: fo that the well-connected family was probably in circumstances to enable them to defray the, then comparatively small, charges of a college education for their fon. Upon this question we are entirely without positive information, and we never again learn, on the authority of the fon, a fingle word refpecting his father, nor more, regarding his mother, than that her name was Elizabeth. Either Spenfer owed little to his parents, or he was fomewhat remifs in repaying what he owed. When he was matriculated at the University, on 20th May, 1569, he was in his seventeenth year; and he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts on 16th January, 1573, and proceeded Master of Arts on 26th June, 1576. We know that portions of "The Faerie Queene," under that name, were in existence four years afterwards, and that Spenfer continued for fome time to refide at Cambridge; but that part of his great work which contains a grateful eulogium upon his alma mater (he expreffly and affectionately calls Cambridge his "mother") was most likely not written until more than ten years after he had relinquished |