ABSTRACT
The Preface to A View of the Present State of Ireland (1633), sigs. ~3_~4; repro Variorum Spenser, The Prose Works, pp. 531-2:
How far these collections may conduce to the knowledge of the antiquities and state of this Land, let the fit reader judge: yet something I may not passe by touching Mr Edmund Spenser and the worke it selfe, lest I should seeme to offer injury to his worth, by others so much celebrated. Hee was borne in London of an ancient and noble family, and brought up in the Vniversitie of Cambridge, where (as the fruites of his after labours doe manifest) he mispent not his time. After this he became Secretary to Arthur Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland, a valiant and worthy Governour, and shortly after for his services to the Crowne, he had bestowed upon him by Queene Elizabeth, 3000. acres ofland in the Countie of Corke. There he finished the later part of that excellent poem of his Faery Queene, which was soone after unfortunately lost by the disorder and abuse of his servant, whom he had sent before him into England, being then a rebellibus (as Camdens words are) e laribus ejectus at bonis spoliatus.1 He deceased at Westminster in the yeare 1599. (others have it wrongly 1598.) soone after his returne into England, and was buried according to his owne desire, in the collegiat Church there, neere unto Chaucer, whom he worthily imitated, (at the costes of Robert Earle of Essex,) whereupon this Epitaph was framed,
[quotes Hie prope Chaucerum ... ] As for his worke now published, although it sufficiently testifieth his learning and deepe judgement, yet we may wish that in some passages it had bin tempered with more moderation. l The troubles and miseries of the time when he wrote it, doe partly excuse him, and surely wee may conceive, that if hee had lived to see these times, and the good effects which the last 30. yeares have produced in this land, both for obedience to the lawes, as also in traffique, husbandry, civility, and earning, he would have omitted those passages which may seeme to ay either any particular aspersion upon some families, or generall upon the Nation. For now we may truly say, jam cuncti gens una sumus, and that upon just cause those ancient statutes, wherein the natives of Irish descent were held to be, and named Irish enemies, and wherein those of English bloud were forbidden to marry and commerce with them, were repealed by act of Parlament, in the raigne of our late Soveraigne King lAMES of ever blessed memory.2
