I find in a book of great reputation, another opinion, delivered upon probable grounds.  The ingenious Mr. Drummond of Hawthronden, a noble wit of Scotland, had an intimate correspondence with all the genius’s of his time who resided at London, particularly the famous Ben Johnson, who had so high an opinion of Mr. Drummond’s abilities, that he took a journey into Scotland in order to converse with him, and stayed some time at his house at Hawthronden.  After Ben Johnson departed, Mr. Drummond, careful to retain what past betwixt them, wrote down the heads of their conversation; which is published amongst his poems and history of the five James’s Kings of Scotland.  Amongst other particulars there is this.  “Ben Johnson told me that Spenser’s goods were robbed by the Irish in Desmond’s rebellion, his house and a little child of his burnt, and he and his wife nearly escaped; that he afterwards died in King-street [4] by absolute want of bread; and that he refused twenty pieces sent him by the Earl of Essex [5], and gave this answer to the person who brought them, that he was sure he had no time to spend them.”

Mr. Drummond’s works, from whence I have extracted the above, are printed in a thin quarto, and may be seen at Mr. Wilson’s at Plato’s Head in the Strand.  I have been thus particular in the quotation, that no one may suspect such extraordinary circumstances to be advanced upon imagination.  In the inscription on his tomb in Westminster Abbey, it is said he was born in the year 1510, and died 1596; Cambden says 1598, but in regard to his birth they must both be mistaken, for it is by no means probable he was born so early as 1510, if we judge by the remarkable circumstance of his standing for a fellowship in competition with Mr. Andrews, who was not born according to Hughes till 1555.  Besides, if this account of his birth be true, he must have been sixty years old when he first published his Shepherd’s Calendar, an age not very proper for love; and in this case it is no wonder, that the beautiful Rosalind slighted his addresses; and he must have been seventy years old when he entered into business under lord Grey, who was created deputy in Ireland 1580:  for which reasons we may fairly conclude, that the inscription is false, either by the error of the carver, or perhaps it was put on when the monument was repaired.

There are very few particulars of this great poet, and it must be a mortification to all lovers of the Muses, that no more can be found concerning the life of one who was the greatest ornament of his profession.  No writer ever found a nearer way to the heart than he, and his verses have a peculiar happiness of recommending the author to our friendship as well as raising our admiration; one cannot read him without fancying oneself transported into Fairy Land, and there conversing with the Graces, in that enchanted region:  In elegance of thinking and fertility of imagination, few of our English authors have approached him, and