SPENSER, EDMUND (1552?-1599).—­Poet, was b. in East Smithfield, London, the s. of John S., described as gentleman and journeyman in the art of cloth-making, who had come to London from Lancashire.  In 1561 the poet was sent to Merchant Taylor’s School, then newly opened, and in 1569 he proceeded to Pembroke Hall, Camb., as a sizar, taking his degree in 1576.  Among his friends there were Edward Kirke, who ed. the Shepheard’s Calendar, and Gabriel Harvey, the critic.  While still at school he had contributed 14 sonnet-visions to Van de Noot’s Theatre for Worldlings (1569).  On leaving the Univ.  S. went to the north, probably to visit his relations in Lancashire, and in 1578, through his friend Harvey, he became known to Leicester and his brother-in-law, Philip Sidney.  The next year, 1579, saw the publication of The Shepheard’s Calendar in 12 eclogues.  It was dedicated to Sidney, who had become his friend and patron, and was received with acclamation, all who had ears for poetry perceiving that a new and great singer had arisen.  The following year S. was appointed sec. to Lord Grey of Wilton, Deputy for Ireland, a strict Puritan, and accompanied him to Ireland.  At the same time he appears to have begun the Faerie Queen.  In 1581 he was appointed Registrar of Chancery, and received a grant of the Abbey and Castle of Enniscorthy, which was followed in 1586 by a grant of the Castle of Kilcolman in County Cork, a former possession of the Earls of Desmond with 3000 acres attached.  Simultaneously, however, a heavy blow fell upon him in the death of Sidney at the Battle of Zutphen.  The loss of this dear friend he commemorated in his lament of Astrophel.  In 1590 he was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh, who persuaded him to come to England, and presented him to the Queen, from whom he received a pension of L50, which does not, however, appear to have been regularly paid, and on the whole his experiences of the Court did not yield him much satisfaction.  In the same year his reputation as a poet was vastly augmented by the publication of the first three books of the Faerie Queen, dedicated to Elizabeth.  The enthusiasm with which they were received led the publisher to bring out a collection of other writings of S. under the general title of Complaints, and including Mother Hubbard’s Tale (a satire on the Court and on the conflict then being waged between the old faith and the new), Teares of the Muses, and The Ruins of Time.  Having seen these ventures launched, S. returned to Kilcolman and wrote Colin Clout’s come Home Again, one of the brightest and most vigorous of his poems, not, however, pub. until 1595.  In the following year appeared his Four Hymns, two on Love and Beauty and two on Heavenly Love and Beauty, and the Prothalamion on the marriage of two daughters of the Earl of Worcester.  He also pub. in prose his View of Ireland,