Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/99

 WILLIAM, LORD BURGHLEY 77

Burghley took no part in such sport. 1 He delighted in books and carried Cicero's Offices about with him. He is said also to have enjoyed the conversation of " learned men," but he was no patron of literature or the arts, about which he probably cared nothing. He neglected Spenser, who revenged himself in the following stanza in " The Ruins of Time " :-

" O grief of grief es ! O gall of all good heart es ! To see that vertue should dispised bee Of him, that first was raisde for vertuous parts, And now, broad spreading like an aged tree, Lets none shoot up that nigh him planted bee : O, let the man, of whom the Muse is scorned, Nor alive nor dead be of the Muse adorned ! " 2

And the only man of letters whom he patronised, so far as we know, was John Norden, the topo- grapher, whose idea of producing a series of county histories would naturally appeal to his tastes. 3

Burghley's charities were extensive. He founded a hospital at Stamford and endowed it for the maintenance of thirteen old men for ever. He was also a patron and benefactor of St. John's College, Cambridge, to which he left 30 per annum as well as plate. He bought up corn in times of dearth and sold it at low prices to the poor, besides

1 It is stated in the Victoria County History, Hertfordshire, I. 345, that he was " a keen sportsman and hunted in Herts," but the evidence all proves the contrary.

2 Spenser's Poetical Works, Aldine ed., IV. 304.

8 See Hatfield MSS., IX. 255, 433, whence it appears that Sir Robert Cecil refused to continue his patronage after his father's death. One of Norden's MSS. in the British Museum has corrections in Burghley's handwriting.

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