able bickerings,
after he had taken his master's degree. There can be
little doubt, however, that he was most diligent and
earnest student during his residence at Cambridge;
during that period, for example, he must have gained
that knowledge of Plato's works which so distinctly
marks his poems, and found in that immortal writer a
spirit most truly congenial. But it is conceivable
that he pursued his studies after his own manner, and
probably enough excited by his independence the strong
disapprobation of the master and tutor of the college
of his day.

Among his contemporaries in his own college were
Lancelot Andrews, afterwards Master, and eventually
Bishop of Winchester, the famous preacher; Gabriel
Harvey, mentioned above, with whom he formed a fast
friendship, and Edward Kirke, the 'E.K.' who, as will
be seen, introduced to the world Spenser's first work
of any pretence. Amongst his contemporaries in the
university were Preston, author of _Cambyses_, and
Still, author of _Gammer Gurtons Needle_, with each of
whom he was acquainted. The friend who would seem to
have exercised the most influence over him was Gabriel
Harvey; but this influence, at least in literary
matters, was by no means for the best. Harvey was some
three or four years the senior, and of some academic
distinction. Probably he may be taken as something
more than a fair specimen of the average scholarship
and culture given by the universities at that time. He
was an extreme classicist; all his admiration was for
classical models and works that savoured of them; he it
was who headed the attempt made in England to force
upon a modern language the metrical system of the
Greeks and Latins. What baneful influence he exercised
over Spenser in this last respect will be shown
presently. Kirke was Spenser's other close friend; he
was one year junior academically to the poet. He too,
as we shall see, was a profound admirer of Harvey.

After leaving the university in 1576, Spenser,
then, about twenty-four years of age, returned to his
own people in the North. This fact is learnt from his
friend 'E.K.'s' glosses to certain lines in the sixth
book of the _Shepheardes Calendar_. E.K. speaks 'of
the North countrye where he dwelt,' and 'of his
removing out of the North parts and coming into the
South.' As E.K. writes in the spring of 1579, and as
his writing is evidently some little time subsequent to
the migration he speaks of, it m