We may observe the manner of his anxious inquiries about Spenser:—
Ask Sir Peter Thompson if it were improper to try if Lord Effingham Howard would procure the pedigrees in the Herald’s office, to be seen for Edmund Spenser’s parentage or family? or how he was related to Sir John Spenser of Althorpe, in Northamptonshire? to three of whose daughters, who all married nobility, Spenser dedicates three of his poems.
Of Mr. Vertue, to examine Stowe’s memorandum-book. Look more carefully for the year when Spenser’s monument was raised, or between which years the entry stands—1623 and 1626.
Sir Clement Cottrell’s book about Spenser.
Captain Power, to know if he has heard from Capt. Spenser about my letter of inquiries relating to Edward Spenser.
Of Whiston, to examine if my remarks on Spenser are complete as to the press—Yes.
Remember, when I see Mr. W. Thompson, to inquire whether he has printed in any of his works any other character of our old poets than those of Spenser and Shakspeare;[353] and to get the liberty of a visit at Kentish Town, to see his Collection of Robert Greene’s Works, in about four large volumes quarto. He commonly published a pamphlet every term, as his acquaintance Tom Nash informs us.
Two or three other memorials may excite a smile at his peculiar habits of study, and unceasing vigilance to draw from original sources of information.
Dryden’s Dream, at Lord Exeter’s, at Burleigh, while he was translating Virgil, as Signior Verrio, then painting there, related it to the Yorkshire painter, of whom I had it, lies in the parchment book in quarto, designed for his life.
At a subsequent period Oldys inserts, “Now entered therein.” Malone quotes this very memorandum, which he discovered in Oldys’s Langbaine, to show Dryden had some confidence in Oneirocriticism, and supposed that future events were sometimes prognosticated by dreams. Malone adds, “Where either the loose prophetic leaf or the parchment book now is, I know not.”[354]