state, he adds:--

Ne may this homely verse, of many meanest,
Hope to escape his venemous despite,
More then my former writs, all were they clearest
From blamefull blot, and from all that wite,
With which some wicked tongues did it backebite,
And bring into a mighty Peres displeasure,
That never so deserved to endite.
Therfore do you my rimes keep better measure,
And seek to please, that now is counted wisemens
threasure.

In the _Tears of the Muses_ Calliope says of certain
persons of eminent rank:--

Their great revenues all in sumptuous pride
They spend that nought to learning they may spare;
And the rich fee which Poets wont divide
Now Parasites and Sycophants do share.

Several causes have been suggested to account for this
disfavour. The popular tradition was pleased to
explain it by making Burghley the ideal dullard who has
no soul for poetry--to whom one copy of verses is very
much as good as another, and no copy good for anything.
It delighted to bring this commonplace gross-minded
person into opposition with one of the most spiritual
of geniuses. In this myth Spenser represents mind,
Burghley matter. But there is no justification in