"The merry London, my most kyndly nurse, That to me gave this life's first active source."
He proudly declared that "he took his name from an ancient house," but we know little of his immediate family. His boyhood was spent at Smithfield, then within easy reach of woods and fields, and he has given us a glimpse of it in these words, which show that he was a boy very much like all other boys:--
"Whilome in youth, when flowed my joy full spring Like swallow swift, I wandered here and there for heat of headlesse lust me did so sting, That I oft doubted daunger, had no fear: I went the wastefull woodes and forrest wide Withouten dread of wolves to bene espied.
"I wont to raunge amid the mazie thicket, And gather nuttes to make my Christmas game, And joyed oft to chase the trembling pricket, Or hunt the hartlesse hare till she were tame. What wrecked I of wintrie age's waste? Tho' deemed I my spring would ever last.
"How often have I scaled the craggie oke, All to dislodge the raven of her nest? How have I wearied with many a stroke The stately walnut tree, the while the rest Under the tree fell all for nuttes at strife? For like to me was libertye and life."
He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and afterwards at Cambridge, where an old biographer declares "he mispent not his time, as the fruites of his labours doe manifest, for that he became an excellent scholar, especially most happy in English poetry." But no other memories remain to us of his university life except the names of his two great and lifelong friends, and all we know of him during the first few years after he left Cambridge is that he lived in the north, and that he fell violently in love with a certain Rosaline, "a gentlewoman both of nature and manners, worthy to be commended to immortalitie for her rare and singular virtues," but who apparently did not in any way return his ardent affections. He lamented her indifference so deeply that he left his home and made his way to London, "all weeping and disconsolate," and though he was by nature light-hearted and pleasure-loving, he treasured the memory of her many charms for fourteen years, until he met and married the Elizabeth whom he described as "my love, my life's last ornament." But if it was despair which drove Spenser to London, he had no cause ever to regret the move, for it led to his making the acquaintance of Sir Philip Sidney, who introduced him to his uncle, the all-powerful Earl of Leicester. Both received him cordially, and in a short time he was mixing in all the intellectual society of the day. England was at peace; Elizabeth's firm rule made for prosperity; the new learning had taken root; the spirit of adventure, of imagination, of chivalry had free scope; the spirit of growth, of progress, of enterprise pervaded the air. All was ready for the coming of a poet who could sing as Chaucer had done, and make sweet music with the national language. In the winter of 1579 Spenser published, not under his own name, his "Shepherdes Calendar," a series of shepherd tales, one for each of the twelve months of the year, and these he dedicated to "Maister Philip Sidney, that noble and vertuous gentleman, most worthy of all titles, both of learning and chevalrie." At once the "new poet" leapt into fame, though nothing could have been in greater contrast than Chaucer's Tales and Spenser's Calendar. The first faithfully pictured life as it was without romance or exaggeration; the second, according to the fashion of the day, was in the form of a masquerade: the heroes and heroines were all shepherds or shepherdesses; everything took place in the country, every one was a rustic, and the highest praise that could be given to Chaucer was to call him the "god of shepherds." So the Calendar had none of that simplicity and truthfulness which gave to Chaucer's work its great charm. Shepherds and shepherdesses, when put in all kinds of unnatural positions, could not fail to be unreal and artificial, especially when they were made to talk in the language of scholars. But Spenser's strength lay in the melody of his verse, in his sense of beauty and his power over language, and it has been truly said that though he is not the greatest of poets, his poetry is the most poetical of all poetry.