_Fowre Letters Confuted_, 1592, 'I graunt to be a
gentleman of an auncient house (so is many an English
beggar), yet this clyme of ours hee cannot thrive in;
our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough in;
hee goes twitching and hopping in our language like a
man running upon quagmiers up the hill in one syllable
and down the dale in another; retaining no part of that
stately smooth gate, which he vaunts himselfe with
amongst the Greeks and Latins.'
Some three years were spent by Spenser in the
enjoyment of Sidney's friendship and the patronage of
Sidney's father and uncle. During this time he would
seem to have been constantly hoping for some
preferment. According to a tradition, first recorded
by Fuller, the obstructor of the success of his suit
was the Treasurer, Lord Burghley. It is clear that he
had enemies at Court--at least at a later time. In
1591, in his dedication of _Colin Clouts Come Home
Again_, he entreats Raleigh, to 'with your good
countenance protest against the malice of evil mouthes,
which are always wide open to carpe at and misconstrue
my simple meaning.' A passage in the _Ruines of Time_
(see the lines beginning 'O grief of griefs! O full of
all good hearts!') points to the same conclusion; and
so the concluding lines of the Sixth Book of the
_Faerie Queene_, when, having told how the Blatant
Beast (not killed as Lord Macaulay says in his essay on
Bunyan, but 'supprest and tamed' for a while by Sir
Calidore) at last broke his iron chain and ranged again
through the world, and raged sore in each degree and