But wise words taught in numbers for to run,
  Recorded by the Muses, live for aye;
  Ne may with storming showers be wash’d away,
    Ne bitter breathing with harmful blast,
    Nor age, nor envy, shall them ever wast.

There passeth a story commonly told and believed, that Mr. Spenser 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 Sum was too much for such a matter; then give him, quoth the Queen, what is reason; but was so busied, or seemed to be so, about matters of higher concernment, that Mr. Spenser received no reward:  whereupon he presented this Petition in a small piece of Paper to the Queen in her progress.

  I was promis’d on a time,
  To have reason for my rime,
  From that time unto this season,
  I receiv’d nor rime nor reason.

This tart reflect so wrought upon the Queen, that she gave strict order (not without some check to her Treasurer) for the present payment of the hundred pounds she first intended him.

He afterwards went over into Ireland, Secretary to the Lord Gray, Lord Deputy thereof; and though that his Office under his Lord was lucrative, yet got he no Estate; Peculiari Poetis fato semper cum paupertate conflictatus est, saith the reverend Cambden; so that it fared little better with him, (than with Churchyard or Tusser before him) or with William Xiliander the German, (a most excellent Linguist, Antiquary, Philosopher, and Mathematician) who was so poor, that (as Thuanus writes) he was thought, Fami non famae scribere.

Thriving so bad in that boggy Country, to add to his misery, he was robb’d by the Rebels of that little he had left; whereupon, in great grief, he returns into England, and falling into want, which to a noble spirit is most killing, being heartbroken, he died Anno 1598. and was honourably buried at the sole charge of Robert, first of that name Earl of Essex, on whose Monument is written this Epitaph.

Edmundus Spencer, Londinensis, Anglicorum Poetarum nostri seculi fuit Princeps, quod ejus Poemata, faventibus Musis, & victuro genio conscripta comprobant.  Obiit immatura morte, Anno salutis, 1598. _& prope_ Galfredum Chaucerum conditur, qui scoelisissime Poesin Anglicis literis primus illustravit.  In quem haec scripta sunt Epitaphia.

      Hic prope Chaucerum situs est Spenserius, illi
        Proximus ingenio, proximus ut tumulo. 
      Hic prope Chaucerum Spensere poeta poetam
        Conderis, & versu! quam tumulo proprior,
      Anglica te vivo vixit, plausitque Poesis;
        Nunc moritura timet, te moriente, mori.