Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/54

40 Burleigh disliking Spenser probably on political grounds, he being protected by the party opposed to himself, observed testily, "What, all this for a song?" The Queen replied, "Then give him what is reason." Spenser waited, but no realization of the royal bounty reached him, and he embraced an opportunity of presenting her with a paper, purporting to be a petition, in which were written the following lines:

The device was successful, as the Queen requested the immediate payment of the money.

In "The Tears of the Muses," a poem containing numerous allusions to the persons and literary history of the time, are some stanzas referring to "Our Pleasant Willy," by whom it is supposed that Shakespeare is meant. "Virgil's Gnat" is a free translation of the "Culex" attributed to that poet. "Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberd's Tale" is a remarkable poem. Lying ill of a sickness produced by the excessive heats of Midsummer, some friends gathered round him to divert him with their stories, and among the rest a good old woman named Mother Hubberd, who related this fable of the "Fox and the Ape." In it occur those powerful lines, which springing from blighted hopes, are among the most nervous that dropped from his pen.

"So pitiful a thing is suitor's state! Full little knowest thou that hast not tried What hell it is in suing long to bide; To lose good days that might be better spent, To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow; To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peers'; To have thy asking, yet wait many years;