Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/487

 * s. in. JUNE 24,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

481

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 91,, 1899.

CONTENTS. -No. 78.

NOTES : Spenser's Lancashire Home, 481 -Peat Shak speare and M. Rostand, 483 Sycophant Archbishop Blackburne Tennyson's ' Amphion' Leghorn Peacocks Feathers, 484" Aphikoumon" " Puts nowt up to mean nowt," 485 Humpbacks touched for Luck Rose and Casti, 486.

QUERIES : " Norman Gizer "Amulet Goethe Tenure of University Office Green Ribbons at Funerals, 486 Erlking=Elfking Walrus Ni/olian Paper Books "Brig o' dread " Reference Wanted. 487 ' Col. Tarleton,' by Reynolds " Gadget " Storm Family Easter Egg and Rabbit Pedigrees in Rime Optical Societies Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset Three Most Famous Prefaces Blaisdell Chute and Mildmay Joseph Bradshaw, M.P. Bowdler MSS. Tobacco, 488 Author of Poem Friar Nicholas of Lynn Lady Grace Herbert Stone Ale, 489.

REPLIES : Lord Burleigh's Precepts, 489 " Veit"=Guy Benjamin Poole " Burleymen " A Deserted Village, 490 Jack Plackett's Common Muscat Caul Oblivion- Cromwell and Music A Hoy Debt of Nature Gordon of Lesmoir, 491 Preen, Salop "Wigs on the green "- ' Pepysiana ' Bibliography Consonantal Combination, 492-Magnetic Pole Liddell and Scott Basilicas-Sir W. Scott ''No great, shakes" List of Knights, 493 Earii- shawand Hook Cromwells of Henburv Old English Inn Milestones to Wentworth House The Last War Bow, 494 Cromwell and Christmas Quarre Abbey St. Jordan London Elecru'cal Dispensary "Judceus Apella" Dyson: Colet. 495 Wise Men of Gotham Golden Gate Martin, a Game Double-naved Churches " Hill me up!" 496 Leprosy of Houses Old Registers Dr. James Fraser, 497 Skelton's Ciphers " Stock "Holy Com- munion " Servery," 498.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Mardrus's Le Livre des Mille Nuits et une Nuit" McCarthy's ' Modern England' Sedge- field's ' King Alfred's Boethius' ' Books Worth Reading.'

SPENSER'S LANCASHIRE HOME.

IT is well known that the poet Spenser, on leaving Cambridge in 1576, when he would be about twenty-four years of age, went to re- side in East Lancashire. Yet it is an obscure part of his life ; all that can be stated with absolute certainty is that he spent some time in the North, perhaps two years ; that he was engaged in the composition of poetical works, one of which was soon to bring him into cele- brity; and that he wooed, but failed to win the hand of a beautiful and accomplished lady, Rosalind, " the widowe's daughter of the glenne." Tradition, however, has, with hardly a doubt, handed down the name of the spot where the young poet resided.

It is Hurstwood, a somewhat lonely and picturesque hamlet on the hills. The hamlet consists of Hurstwood Hall, the house where the poet lived, and one or two farms and cottages. Hurstwood Hall was built during Spenser's stay in the hamlet. It is not large, nor has it any pretence to architectural dignity, but in its day it would be considered a sub- stantial and respectable residence. Here lived a younger and probably poorer branch of the Towneley family, whose chief seat was Towneley Hall, not far from the town of

Burnley, and some two miles distant from Hurstwood. Over the entrance may still be read these words, carved in stone, "Barnardus Townley et Agnes uxorejus." Barnard Town- ley was, it is thought, the architect of his own house. Agnes, his wife, was an Ormerod of Ormerod Hall, which is close to Hurstwood.

Hurstwood Hall concerns only the local antiquary. The house where Spenser lived for a short period has a wider-reaching in- terest. It stands nearly opposite the former residence of Barnard and Agnes Townley, and is but a few yards removed, the main thorough- fare of the hamlet very narrowly separating the two buildings. Architecturally it is not inferior to Hurstwood Hall. It is a com- modious, handsome, and solid-looking struc- ture, with three large and lofty gables, and a fine, almost imposing porch. This porch seems to have been a more recent addition, built of newer stone, and probably replaced an older one that had become dilapidated. Some years ago the front room to the left contained a spacious fireplace, common enough in large houses, and in many antique buildings con- tinuing in use to the present day. Such, indeed, may be the case with this at Hurst- wood House. This room has a roof of oak, another characteristic of these quaint old halls. And here, in all likelihood, lived and loved and wrote the poets' poet, as Spenser has been happily designated.

In this house dwelt for four centuries a branch of the Spenser family, so the poet would be the guest of his relatives. We can scarcely suppose that he paid this visit to his father's home, for Edmund was born in Lon- don. We know nothing of his father, not even his name or employment, but we know that his mother's name was Elizabeth. Eliza- beth is a name trebly celebrated in Spenser's story, being not only that of his mother, but also of his wife, whose immortality is embalmed in sweet and noble verse, and being likewise the name, historically still more illustrious, of England's most sovereign queen. The parish registers of Burnley mention the Spen- sers of Hurstwood down to 1654. The bap- tismal name Edmund continually recurs. The poet claimed kinship with a rising and dis- tinguished house, the Spencers of Althorpe, spelt, as will be seen, with a slight difference.

Hurstwood, situated on a fertile slope of lie hill, is still emphatically in rural country e r reen fields running up to and pleasantly environing it on every hand, whilst at no remote distance woodland adds greatly to the charm and beauty of the spot. When the writer revisited this hamlet last autumn, and Deheld the sycamores and elms and oaks clad