lowing brief obituary:
'Edmundus Spencer Londinensis, Anglicorum Poetarum
nostri seculi facile princeps, quod ejus poemata
faventibus Musis et victuro genio conscripta
comprobant. Obijt immatura morte anno salutis 1598, et
prope Galfredum Chaucerum conditur qui felicissime
po{e"}sin Anglicis literis primus illustravit. In quem
h{ae}c scripta sunt epitaphia:--

Hic prope Chaucerum situs est Spenserius, illi
Proximus ingenio proximus ut tumulo.

Hic prope Chaucerum, Spensere poeta, poetam
Conderis, et versu quam tumulo propior.
Anglica, te vivo, vixit plausitque po{e"}sis;
Nunc moritura timet, te moriente, mori.'

'Edmund Spencer of London, far the first of the
English Poets of our age, as his poems prove, written
under the smile of the Muses, and with a genius
destined to live. He died prematurely in the year of
salvation 1598, and is buried near Geoffrey Chaucer,
who was the first most happily to set forth poetry in
English writing: and on him were written these
epitaphs:--

Here nigh to Chaucer Spenser lies; to whom
In genius next he was, as now in tomb.

Here nigh to Chaucer, Spenser, stands thy
hearse,{1}
Still nearer standst thou to him in thy verse.
Whilst thou didst live, lived English poetry;
Now thou art dead, it fears that it shall die.'

The next notice is found in Drummond's account of
Ben Jonson's conversations with him in the year 1618:
'Spencer's stanzas pleased him not, nor his
matter. The meaning of the allegory of his Fairy Queen
he had delivered in writing to Sir Walter Rawleigh,
which was, "that by the Bleating Beast he understood
the Puritans, and by the false Duessa the Queen of
Scots." He told, that Spencer's goods were robbed by
the Irish, and his house and a little child burnt, he
and his wife escaped, and after died for want of bread
in King Street; he refused 20 pieces sent to him by my
lord Essex, and said he was sure he had no time to
spend them.'{2}
The third record occurs in Camden's _History of
Queen Elizabeth (Annales rerum Anglicarum et
Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha)_, first published in
a complete form in 1628. There the famous antiquary
registering what demises marked the year 1598 (our
March 25, 1598, to March 24, 1599), adds to his list
Edmund Spenser, and thus writes of him: 'Ed. Spenserus,
patria Londinensis, Cantabrigienis autem alumnus, Musis
adeo arridentibus na