584 579 One day, whiles that my daylie cares did sleepe 536 585 418 377 PENELOPE, for her Ulisses sake 193 LACKYNG my love, I go from place to place 576 391 11 486 580 574 599 RAPT with the rage of mine own ravisht 602 8 1 206 8 497 9 9 574 79 573 155 583 484 582 575 412 577 579 575 211 32 580 577 That conning Architect of cancred guyle The famous Briton Prince and Faery Knight 9 Upon a day, as Love lay sweetly slumbring 7 549 The soverayne beauty which I doo admire The waies, through which my weary steps guyde The weary yeare his race now having run This holy season, fit to fast and pray 573 582 585 What warre so cruel, or what siege so sore 139 576 579 6 579 175 608 102 581 576 224 452 581 86 582 YE gentle Ladies, in whose soveraine powre. 396 6 570 8 8 279 THE LIFE Of SPENSER is wrapt in a similar obscurity to that which hides from us his great predecessor Chaucer, and his still greater contemporary Shakspere. As in the case of Chaucer, our principal external authorities are a few meagre entries in certain official documents, and such facts as may be gathered from his works. The birth-year of each poet is determined by inference. The circumstances in which each died are a matter of controversy. What sure information we have of the intervening events of the life of each one is scanty and interrupted. So far as our knowledge goes, it shows some slight positive resemblance between their lives. They were both connected with the highest society of their times; both enjoyed court favour, and enjoyed it in the substantial shape of pensions. They were both men of remarkable learning. They were both natives of London. They both died in the close vicinity of Westminster Abbey, and lie buried near each other in that splendid cemetery. Their geniuses were eminently different: that of Chaucer was of the active type, Spenser's of the contemplative; Chaucer was dramatic, Spenser philosophical; Chaucer objective, Spenser subjective; but in the external circumstances, so far as we know them, amidst which these great poets moved, and in the mist which for the most part enfolds those circumstances, there is considerable likeness. Spenser is frequently alluded to by his contemporaries; they most ardently recognised in him, as we shall see, a great poet, and one that might justly be associated with the one supreme poet whom this country had then produced-with Chaucer, and they paid him constant tributes of respect and admiration; but these mentions of him do not generally supply any biographical details. The earliest notice of him that may in any sense be termed biographical occurs in a sort of handbook to the monuments of Westminster Abbey, published by Camden in 1606. Amongst the 'Reges, Reginæ, Nobiles, et alij in Ecclesia Collegiata B. Petri |