et bonis spoliatus_. He deceased at Westminster in the
year 1599 (others have it wrongly 1598), soon after his
return into England, and was buried according to his
own desire in the collegiat church there, neere unto
Chaucer whom he worthily imitated (at the costes of
Robert Earle of Essex), whereupon this epitaph was
framed.' And then are quoted the epigrams already
given from Camden.
The next passage that can be called an account of
Spenser is found in Fuller's _Worthies of England_,
first published in 1662, and runs as follows:--
'Edmond Spencer, born in this city (London), was
brought up in Pembroke-hall in Cambridge, where he
became an excellent scholar; but especially most happy
in English Poetry; as his works do declare, in which
the many Chaucerisms used (for I will not say affected
by him) are thought by the ignorant to be blemishes,
known by the learned to be beauties, to his book; which
notwithstanding had been more saleable, if more
conformed to our modern language.
'There passeth a story commonly told and believed,
that Spencer presenting his poems to queen Elizabeth,
she, highly affected therewith, commanded the lord
Cecil, her treasurer, to give him an hundred pound; and
when the treasurer (a good steward of the queen's
money) alledged that the sum was too much; "Then give
him," quoth the queen, "What is reason;" to which the
lord consented, but was so busied, belike, about
matters of higher concernment, that Spencer received no
reward, whereupon he presented this petition in a small