(Vol. vii., p. 303.)
Mr. F. F. Spenser published the results of his researches relative to
Spenser in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for August, 1842; and towards the
end of his communication promised to record "many further interesting
particulars," through the same medium, but failed to do so. Mr. Craik
has made special reference to Mr. F. F. Spenser's paper in a little work
upon which he must have bestowed a vast deal of labour, and which
contains the completest investigation of all that has been discovered
concerning the life, works, and descendants of the poet that I have met
with: I refer to _Spenser and his Poetry_: by George L. Craik, M.A.: 3
vols. London, 1845. The appendix to vol. iii., devoted to an account of
the descendants of Spenser, among other interesting matter, contains the
history of the family descended from Sarah Spenser, a sister of Edmund
Spenser, which is still represented. To which I may add that Spenser's
own direct descendants are living in the city of Cork, and, I regret to
say, in reduced circumstances. This should not be. A pension might well
be bestowed on the descendants of Spenser, the only one of our four
great poets whose posterity is not extinct.