The Honourable History of Fryar Bacon, and Fryar Bungy; play’d by the Prince of Palatine’s servants.  I know not whence our author borrowed his plot, but this famous fryar Minor lived in the reign of Henry iii. and died in the reign of Edward I. in the year 1284.  He joined with Dr. Lodge in one play, called a Looking Glass for London; he writ also the Comedies of Fryar Bacon and Fair Enome.  His other pieces are, Quip for an upstart Courtier, and Dorastus and Fawnia.  Winstanley imputes likewise to him the following pieces.  Tully’s Loves; Philomela, the Lady Fitzwater’s Nightingale; Green’s News too Late, first and second part; Green’s Arcadia; Green’s Farewel to Folly; Green’s Groatsworth of Wit.

It is said by Wood in his Fasti, p. 137, vol. i. that our author died in the year 1592, of a surfeit taken by eating pickled herrings, and drinking with them rhenish wine.  At this fatal banquet, Thomas Nash, his cotemporary at Cambridge was with him, who rallies him in his Apology of Pierce Pennyless.  Thus died Robert Green, whose end may be looked upon as a kind of punishment for a life spent in riot and infamy.

* * * * *

EDMUND SPENSER

was born in London, and educated at Pembroke Hall in Cambridge.  The accounts of the birth and family of this great man are but obscure and imperfect, and at his first setting out into life, his fortune and interest seem to have been very inconsiderable.

After he had for some time continued at the college, and laid that foundation of learning, which, joined to his natural genius, qualified him to rise to so great an excellency, he stood for a fellowship, in competition with Mr. Andrews, a gentleman in holy orders, and afterwards lord bishop of Winchester, in which he was unsuccessful.  This disappointment, joined with the narrowness of his circumstances, forced him to quit the university [1]; and we find him next residing at the house of a friend in the North, where he fell in love with his Rosalind, whom he finely celebrates in his pastoral poems, and of whose cruelty he has written such pathetical complaints.

It is probable that about this time Spenser’s genius began first to distinguish itself; for the Shepherd’s Calendar, which is so full of his unprosperous passion for Rosalind, was amongst the first of his works of note, and the supposition is strengthened, by the consideration of Poetry’s being frequently the offspring of love and retirement.  This work he addressed by a short dedication to the Maecenas of his age, the immortal Sir Philip Sidney.  This gentleman was now in the highest reputation, both for wit and gallantry, and the most popular of all the courtiers of his age, and as he was himself a writer, and especially excelled in the fabulous or inventive part of poetry; it is no wonder he was struck with our author’s genius, and became sensible of his merit.  A story is told of him