Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/392

 others were substituted for the four ‘out of the Revelations of St. John,’ while Petrarch's poems were renamed ‘Visions,’ and were each made of the uniform length of fourteen lines. The poems were promising performances for an undergraduate.

At the university Spenser read widely and with enthusiasm, and became not only a considerable Latin and Greek scholar, but an expert in French and Italian literature. His Latin verses, if not always exact, show fluency and ease. Lodowick Bryskett, in 1583 or thereabouts, describes him as ‘not onely perfect in the Greek tongue, but also very well read in philosophie both morall and naturall.’ ‘He encouraged me long sithens,’ Bryskett adds, ‘to follow the reading of the Greek tongue, and offered me his helpe to make me understand it’ (A Discovrse of Civill Life, 1606). Of modern writers, besides Du Bellay and Petrarch, he closely studied Marot and Chaucer. While an undergraduate he suffered alike from poverty and ill-health. As a ‘poor scholar’ he was awarded two further sums from the Nowell bequest—6s. on 7 Nov. 1570, and 2s. 6d. on 24 April 1571. Among those to whom ‘allowances’ were made ‘ægrotantibus’ he is mentioned several times, his illnesses lasting two and a half weeks, four weeks, two weeks, seven weeks, six weeks (see, Spenser's Works, i. 36). But on the whole his university career was beneficial. He was brought into contact with many persons of note, such as John Still (afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells) [q. v.], Thomas Preston (1537–1598) [q. v.], Lancelot Andrewes (afterwards bishop of Winchester) [q. v.], and probably with his fellow-countryman, Dr. William Whitaker [q. v.], while he made firm friends with Dr. John Young (d. 1605) [q. v.], master of his college (afterwards bishop of Rochester), ‘the faithful Roffy’ of the ‘Shepheards Calender.’ But his two most intimate associates at Pembroke Hall were Gabriel Harvey [q. v.], who became a fellow in 1570, and Edward Kirke [q. v.], who was admitted a sizar in 1571. Both shared and encouraged his literary tastes, and recognised his budding genius. Though Spenser is silent in his verse about his college, he pays a fine compliment to Cambridge in the ‘Faerie Queene’ (. xi. 34).

Spenser proceeded M.A. in 1576, and in the same year left the university. For a time, according to the statements of his friend Edward Kirke, he sojourned with his kinsfolk at or near Hurstwood. There he fell deeply in love with a damsel on whom he bestowed the name of Rosalind, ‘a feigned name which, being wel ordered, wil bewray the very name of hys love and mistresse whom by that name he coloureth’ (E. K.'s ‘Glosso’ to the Shep. Cal.) She was, Kirke asserts, ‘a gentlewoman of no mean house nor endewed with anye vulgare and common gifts both of nature and manners.’ But she disdained the poet's suit, and his despair is largely recorded in his works—from the ‘Shepheards Calender,’ written about the time and published in 1579, to ‘Colin Clouts come home againe,’ written in 1591, and published (after some revision) in 1595. Several attempts have been made to identify the poet's ‘Rosalind.’ According to Aubrey, who quotes John Dryden as his authority, ‘she was a kinswoman of Sir Erasmus Dryden's lady,’ i.e. of Frances, daughter and coheiress of William Wilkes of Hodnet, Warwickshire. Dryden told Aubrey that Spenser was ‘an acquaintance and frequenter’ of his grandfather, Sir Erasmus Dryden; that a chamber in Sir Erasmus's house at Canon Ashby, Northamptonshire, was still called ‘Mr. Spenser's chamber’ late in the seventeenth century; and that behind the wainscot there was found ‘an abundance of cards with stanzas of the “Faerie Queene” written upon them’ (, iii. 542). But, despite the weight to be attached to such testimony, chronology renders it difficult to accept it in all its details. At any rate, in 1579 Sir Erasmus Dryden was a very tender youth. The most plausible theory seems to be that ‘Rosalind’ was one Rose, daughter of a yeoman named Dyneley, who lived near Clitheroe. We have no clue to ‘Menalcas,’ who was the successful suitor, ‘a person unknown and secret,’ says E. K., ‘against whom [the poet] often bitterly invayeth.’

Spenser's passion for ‘Rosalind’ stimulated his poetic impulse, and, while engaged in his ill-fated love suit, he kept his college friends Kirke and Harvey informed of many an ambitious literary project. By the advice of Harvey he soon left the north for London. His disappointment in love and the need of earning a livelihood alike rendered the change desirable. His friend Kirke, in the annotations on the ‘June’ eclogue of the ‘Shepheards Calender,’ remarks on the counsel to ‘forsake the soyle’ which Hobbinol (i.e. Harvey) offers the poet: ‘This is no poetical fiction, but unfeynedly spoken of the Poet selfe, who for speciall occasion of private affayres (as I have bene partly of himselfe informed) and for his more preferment removing out of the Northparts came into the South, as Hobbinoll indeede advised him privately.’ Harvey was in confidential relations with the queen's powerful favourite, the Earl of Leicester, and Harvey recommended Spenser to his patron's notice. Not later