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446 ledge now of the source whence they spring will add to their value.]

Swift, like some other poets—Congreve, Thomson, Goldsmith, and many more, read his own pieces badly. His deficiency in this respect is ascertained from the testimony of George Faulkner, his Dublin publisher, who in a note to the Irish edition of his works, speaks of it as an acknowledged fact.

Edmund Spenser appears to have been born in 1557, for he was matriculated at Cambridge, where be became a member of Pembroke Hall in May 1569. At that time they usually went to the University at twelve years old. William Webbe, in his Discourse of English Poetrie, 4to., 1586, mentions the following pieces of Spenser as being then in MS.—“His Dreams, his Legends, his Court of Cupid, and his English Poet.”

Mr. Narcissus Luttrell had formed a very curious collection of ancient English poetry in twenty-four quarto volumes, distinguished by the letters of the alphabet. These were purchased some years ago by the late Dr. Farmer, for twenty-four guineas. Being cut up and sold piecemeal, they produced at the sale of his books nearly, I believe, 200l. They contained about three hundred articles. Five folio volumes of lampoons, ballads, and occasional pieces, chiefly expressive of the opinions of the day, and published between the Restoration and the end of the century, were secured by Mr. Bindley.