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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
It has long been believed that, before Part I of The Faerie Queene was published (in 1590) portions of Books I and II had been seen by Fraunce, Peele, and Marlowe. It is known that Gabriel Harvey had manuscript of The Faerie Queene for criticism before April, 1580; that Raleigh in Ireland and Queen Elizabeth in London passed judgment on some part of the first division before it was put into print; and that a circle of Lodowick Bryskett's friends near Dublin heard Spenser tell his plans for the whole work and also saw “some parcels” of it.
1 See J. C. Smith, The Faerie Queene (Oxford, 1909), introd., p. xi.
2 See Three Proper and Wittie, Familiar Letters (1580), in Spenser's Poetical Works (Oxford, 1924), p. 612.
3 Spenser's Works, ed. Grosart, I, 155ff; and Colin Clout's Come Home Again.
4 The meeting told of in Bryskett's Discourse of Civill Life probably occurred in the first half of 1582, according to Mr. H. R. Plomer, in a study of Bryskett's life and work, soon to be published in the Modern Philology Monograph Series.
5 On the nature of this “second part”, see Greg's introduction. The Masque of Proteus may be found in Nicholas Nicolas' edition of Davison, Poetical Rhapsodie, (1826), vol. II.
6 See Gesta Grayorum, (ed. Greg), pp. vi, 3, 67, 68, et passim.
7 Ibid., p. 25.
8 Ibid., pp. 6 and 67. Davison is listed as “Gentleman Pensioner,” and Campion is in all probability the “Campnies” who was in the Masque at the close.
9 An anthology containing poems by himself, his brother, some major, and some minor poets of his day.
10 1602 ed., sig. K8 recto.
11 Ibid., sig. D3 verso.
12 The idea for the Adamantine Rock is from another source, and serves to link the masque of Proteus with certain political purposes of the Gesta Grayorum as a whole, which I shall discuss in a separate article.
13 Gesta Grayoram, p. 60.
14 See Gesta Grayorum, pp. 22-24 et passim. I am not altogether convinced that the quarrel was real. It may have been part of the program.
15 Gesta Grayorum, p. 25.
16 So according to the genealogy in Nicholas Nicolas, Life of William Davison; but some writers have dated his birth 1575.
17 Poetical Rhapsody, (ed. Nicolas), I, xliiiff.
18 Ibid., I, 82.
19 Life of William Davison, L., 1823.
20 The document is in Hatfield Papers, part III, no. 472.
21 The first is from a MS in Caius Coll. Camb. Class A. 1090. 8. p. 267; the second, from Bodleian MS Juridici, 7843. 862. p. 235.
22 Nicolas, op. cit., p. 139. The Earl of Lincoln and the Earl of Sunderland were inclined to agree with Grey, but were somewhat faint-hearted.
23 Ibid., 345ff.
24 Earl. MS 290, f. 233. orig.
25 A good transcript of James's letter of objection, November, 1596, may be found in F. I. Carpenter, Reference Guide to Spenser, p. 41.
26 See the full list of books and papers left in Francis Davison's hands, in Nicolas' edition of the Poetical Rhapsody, I, xliii. For an account of Burghley's enmity toward William Davison, drawn up by Davison himself, see Nicolas, Life of William Davison, Appx.
27 See Nicolas' account of these state papers, in his ed. of Poetical Rhapsodie, I, xliii ff.
28 Salisbury MSS, V, 427.
29 See the genealogical chart in Nicolas, Life of Wm. Davison, opp. p. 212.
30 Sir Henry Sidney's Dispatches, Dean Nowell's MS Abbreviate of Ireland and Description of the Power of Irishmen (before 1576), and Churchyard's General Rehearsall of Warres (Churchyard's Choise, 1579) are all worth looking into as possible sources; but all are earlier than the Davison material, as are all the maps listed as available in Carpenter's Guide.
