The Shepherds' Calendar (Classic Reprint) - Professor Edmund Spenser

Excerpt from The Shepherds' Calendar
This little book of music to the ear and to the mind was published in the year 1579, as the work of a new poet, introduced to the world by his friend "E. K." - an old college companion, Edmund Kirke. The "new poet" was Edmund Spenser, then twenty-six years, now three hundred and thirty-six years old, and ever young.
Edmund Spenser was of a Lancashire family, settled at Hurstwood, near Burnley, and in other parts of the same district. A Lettice Nowell married a Lawrence Spenser, and we find aid to the education of Spenser the poet in a MS. of "the spending of the money of Robert Nowell." The aid shows that he was being educated at Merchant Taylors' School. A John Spenser was described in 1566 as a free journeyman in the art and mystery of cloth-making, at that time in the service of Nicholas Peele, shearman, of Bow Lane.
Let us agree with Dr. Grosart, who has done most towards investigation of the Spenser settlement in North-East Lancashire, from which the poet sprang - with Edmund for a lineal Christian name and believe that this John Spenser from Lancashire, engaged in business in London, was the poet's father. Spenser was born in London, at East Smithfields beyond the City walls, about the year 1553, which was the year of the death of King Edward VI.
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