In Ireland Spenser began to write his masterpiece _The Faery
Queen_. Raleigh, to whom the first three books were read, was so
impressed by the beauty of the work that he hurried the poet off to
London, and gained for him the royal favor. In the poem "Colin
Clout's Come Home Again" we may read Spenser's account of how the
court impressed him after his sojourn in Ireland.

[Illustration: RALEIGH'S BIRTHPLACE, BUDLEIGH SALTERTON.
Hayes, Devonshire]

The publication of the first parts of _The Faery Queen_ (1590)
raised Spenser to the foremost place in English letters. He was
made poet-laureate, and used every influence of patrons and of
literary success to the end that he be allowed to remain in London,
but the queen was flint-hearted, insisting that he must give up his
estate or occupy it. So he returned sorrowfully to "exile," and
wrote three more books of _The Faery Queen_. To his other
offices was added that of sheriff of County Cork, an adventurous
office for any man even in times of peace, and for a poet, in a
time of turmoil, an invitation to disaster. Presently another
rebellion broke out, Kilcolman castle was burned, and the poet's
family barely escaped with their lives. It was said by Ben Jonson
that one of Spenser's children and some parts of _The Faery
Queen_ perished in the fire, but the truth of the saying has not
been established.

Soon after this experience, which crushed the poet's spirit, he was
ordered on official business to London, and died on the journey in
1599. As he was buried beside Chaucer, in Westminster Abbey, poets
were seen casting memorial verses and the pens that had written