found it entered as follows: “Feb. 1590 (i. e. 1591) An Annuity of 50l. per ann. to Edmund Spenser during life.”—(D. Aubrey.)
This particular has, I think, escaped all our biographers. Fifty pounds a year was then, all circumstances being considered, at least equal to 200l. a year now, so that he could not be in such extreme poverty at his death as is usually represented. I suppose that contemporary writers meant he was comparatively poor; for he had possessed a large estate in Ireland which was lost in the troubles. He was in Ireland in 1598, as appears by a curious letter from Queen Elizabeth which I found in the Museum, recommending him to be Sheriff of the County of Cork in that year. . . . . (See it in my Shakspeare.)
Yesterday (June 19) I passed an hour very agreeably in Furnival’s Inn with Mr. P. H. Neve, a young gentleman who has lately printed some miscellaneous observations on the English poets, and is much devoted to literary pursuits. His chambers look on the garden of Furnival’s Inn, a very sequestered spot which I had never before happened to look at. Yet he complained that it was not private enough, and talked of moving elsewhere. He showed me many rare autographs, and a curious memorandum which he found lately in Milton’s book in defence of the people of England; in which the former possessor of the book says in Latin, that Milton’s brother (who was, I think, a judge of one of the courts at Westminster)<-- Christopher Milton --> told him that with
