Parcels of the _Faerie Queene_ had been seen, it appears, not only by Spenser’s friends in Dublin, but by his literary contemporaries in London. I. v. 2 is imitated in Peele’s _David and Bethsabe_ (date unknown, but probably before 1590). I. vii. 32 and I. viii. 11 are imitated in Act IV, Sc. 4 and Act IV, Sc. 3 respectively of the second part of Marlowe’s _Tamburlaine_ (published 1590, but acted some years earlier). Finally, Abraham Fraunce in his _Arcadian Rhetorike_ (1588) quotes Spenser ‘in his _Fairie Queene_, 2 booke, cant. 4’. Fraunce’s quotation is the more interesting inasmuch as it shows that by 1588[5] the _F. Q._ had not only been composed, but disposed into its present arrangement of books and cantos so far at least as II. iv. It is worth remarking that all these imitations of and quotations from _F. Q._ before it was published are from that part of the poem which we have seen some reason to think was written before Spenser left England. Allusions in the poem shed no certain light on the progress of its composition. There is no reason to suppose that Spenser composed the whole of the _F. Q._ in the order in which he gave it to the world. It is more likely that he worked up many incidents and episodes as they occurred to him, and afterwards placed them in the poem. We know that the _Wedding of Thames and Medway_, which now forms IV. xi, is a redaction of an _Epithalamium Thamesis_ which he originally undertook as an experiment in quantitative metre before April, 1580. And it seems probable that the _Legendes_ and _Court of Cupid_ mentioned by E. K. in his preface to the _Shepheards Calender_, as well as the _Pageaunts_[6] mentioned in the Glosse on _June_, were similarly worked over and incorporated in the _F. Q._ Combining these pieces of evidence, we receive the impression that for some time after he came to Ireland Spenser worked but intermittently on the _F. Q._, resuming the regular composition and arrangement of the poem about the time when he ceased to reside in Dublin.[7] By 1588--the date of Fraunce’s quotation--he may have already been settled at Kilcolman. There, at least, Raleigh found him in 1589, and was shown the poem; with the result that in the autumn of that year Spenser accompanied Raleigh to London, and set about the publication of Books I-III. The volume was licensed to William Ponsonbye on Dec. 1, 1589. Spenser’s explanatory letter to Raleigh bears date Jan. 23, 1589 (i. e. 1590 N. S.). In the course of 1590, but not before March 25, the volume was published. The printing shows some signs of haste; there is a long list of errata or ‘Faults Escaped in the Print’. This list, though not itself faultless, is of paramount authority in determining the text of Books I-III; it is cited in the notes as _F. E._