Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Lisa Reigel, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. Some typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected. A complete list follows the text. The text contains three Greek words--they may not display properly. Words italicized in the original are surrounded by _underscores_. Words in bold in the original are surrounded by +plus signs+. Characters inside {braces} are superscripted in the original. In quoted material, a row of asterisks represents an ellipsis. Ellipses match the original. SPENSER BY R. W. CHURCH, DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S, HONORARY FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE. London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1879 _The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved._ NOTICE. As the plan of these volumes does not encourage footnotes, I wish to say that, besides the biographies prefixed to the various editions of Spenser, there are two series of publications, which have been very useful to me. One is the series of Calendars of State Papers, especially the State Papers on Ireland and the Carew MSS. at Lambeth, with the prefaces of Mr. Hans Claude Hamilton and the late Professor Brewer. The other is Mr. E. Arber's series of reprints of old English books, and his Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, a work, I suppose, without parallel in its information about the early literature of a country, and edited by him with admirable care and public spirit. I wish also to say that I am much indebted to Mr. Craik's excellent little book on _Spenser and his Poetry_. R. W. C. _March, 1879._ CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE SPENSER'S EARLY LIFE (1552-1579) 1 CHAPTER II. THE NEW POET--THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR (1579) 29 CHAPTER III. SPENSER IN IRELAND (1580) 51 CHAPTER IV. THE FAERY QUEEN--THE FIRST PART (1580-1590) 81 CHAPTER V. THE FAERY QUEEN 118 CHAPTER VI. SECOND PART OF THE FAERY QUEEN--SPENSER'S LAST YEARS (1590-1599) 166 SPENSER. CHAPTER I. SPENSER'S EARLY LIFE. [1552-1579.]