--

Primo Die Decembris.--Master Ponsonbye.
Entered for his Copye a book intituled the fayre
Queene, dyposed into xii bookes &c. Aucthorysed
vnder thandes of the Archb. of Canterbery & bothe
the Wardens, vjd.

The letter of the author's prefixed to his poem
'expounding his whole intention in the course of this
worke, which for that it giveth great light to the
reader, for the better understanding is hereunto
annexed,' addressed to 'Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight,
Lord Wardein of the Stanneryes and her Maiesties
lieftenaunt in the county of Cornewayll,' is dated
January 23, 1589--that is, 1590, according to the New
Style. Shortly afterwards, in 1590, according to both
Old and New Styles, was published by William Ponsonby
'THE FAERIE QUEENE, Disposed into twelve books,
Fashioning XII Morall vertues.' That day, which we
spoke of as beginning to arise in 1579, now fully
dawned. The silence of well nigh two centuries was now
broken, not again to prevail, by mighty voices. During
Spenser's absence in Ireland, William Shakspere had
come up from the country to London. The exact date of
his advent it seems impossible to ascertain. Probably
enough it was 1585; but it may have been a little
later. We may, however, be fairly sure that by the
time of Spenser's arrival in London in 1589, Shakspere
was already occupying a notable position in his
profession as an actor; and what is more important,
there can be little doubt he was already known not only
as an actor, but as a play-writer. What he had already
written was not comparable with what he was to write
subsequently; but even those early dramas gave promise
of splendid fruits to be thereafter yielded. In 1593
appeared _Venus and Adonis_; in the following year
_Lucrece_; in 1595, Spenser's _Epithalamion_; in 1596,
the second three books of the _Faerie Queene_; in 1597
_Romeo and Juliet_, _King Richard the Second_, and
_King Richard the Third_ were printed, and also Bacon's
_Essays_ and the first part of Hooker's _Ecclesiastical
Polity_. During all these years various plays, of
increasing power and beauty, were proceeding from
Shakspere's hands; by 1598 about half of his extant
plays had certainly been composed. Early in 1599, he,
who may be said to have ushered in this illustrious
period, he whose radiance first dispersed the darkness
and made the day begin to be, our poet Spenser, died.
But the day did not die with him; it was t