Author: Spenser, J. T.
Biography:
SPENSER, J. T. (fl 1787-88)
Besides his surname and initials on the title page of The Micthodion: or, Miscellaneous Poems on Various Subjects, little is known about this poet. He hailed from Suffolk and it is likely that, with Thomas Green (q.v.) who contributed nine of the twenty-six poems in The Micthodion, he was educated at the Ipswich Free Grammar School when the Rev. John King was headmaster. The one known surviving copy of The Micthodion, in the BL, seems to have served as copy text for another edition, published as The Micthodion; or, A Poetical Olio, by “a young gentleman” in London in 1788. The BL copy has a few manuscript corrections to the text and the poems by Green are identified by his initials and age at the time of composition; the ages range from 14 to 17. Eight more poems are identified by the initials “J. S. C.”, with his age (17 to 18) at the time of composition. The remaining nine poems have no initials but, presumably, were written by J. T. Spenser. The Ipswich edition was advertised in the Ipswich Journal on 17 Mar. 1787 as "forthcoming" and on 25 Mar. 1787 as "just published." No reviews have been found. The 1787 edition was dedicated to “the Ladies of Suffolk” but the London edition, known only from reviews and from Ford, was dedicated to the queen’s maids of honour. The book includes a new preface which, according to CR, states that the poems were written when the author, now seventeen, was just fourteen. It seems likely that the three authors—Spenser, Green, and the unknown J. S. C.—were schoolboys together but no public records that are a convincing match for a J. T. Spenser, born in Suffolk in about 1769, have been located. (Ipswich Journal 17 Mar. 1787, 25 Mar. 1787; James Ford, A Memoir of Thomas Green [1825]; CR 66 [1788], 417-18; MR 78 [1788], 516-17) JC, SR