[3] We have several printed specimens of her Majesty’s poetry, which does not want for elevation of thought; but to compose poetry with the energy of her prose, deprived her Majesty of all the grace and melody of verse. I have been informed, on the best authority, that Elizabeth exercised her poetical pen more voluminously than we have hitherto known, for that there exists a manuscript volume of her Majesty’s poems in that rich repository of State-papers—the Hatfield Collection.
[4] Three thousand acres of dilapidated estates of the Earl of Desmond. The receivers of these grants were called “The Undertakers,” as they were bound to bring the lands into cultivation, which, after the ravages of fire and sword, consisted of tenantless farms and a wasted soil. Sir Walter Rawleigh had a grant of twelve thousand acres, which he probably found profitless, for he made them over at a low rate to the Boyle family.
[5] I have been favoured with the sight of several manuscript letters of Burleigh, in the possession of a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Taunton, which relate to this critical period. They remarkably display the eager and remorseless decision of Burleigh. Messengers were sent off three or four times in a day, countermanding the former command, as the mind of Elizabeth vacillated, disconcerting the plans of the minister. The order “to cut off her head” is given with the most revolting minuteness.
[6] This petition in rhyme is well known—
| “I was promised on a time, To have reason for my rhime; From that time unto this season, I received nor rhime nor reason.” |
Mr. Todd deems the anecdote apocryphal, because he can only retrace it to Fuller, who published it seventy years after the incident recorded, assigning no authority. Honest Fuller has, however, given a tolerable authority for such a sort of thing, namely, that it was “a story commonly told and believed.” There could be no motive for any one to invent the circumstance and the pleasantry, gratuitously to ascribe it to the poet. Mr. Todd is pleased to call “the numbers magical,” and decides on this “ridiculous memorial”—a criticism fatal to all the playfulness of genius. Were the “Rhimes” not good enough for the nonce, and “the Reason” amusingly convenient to be remembered?
The anecdote is only deficient in its date, and possibly may relate to some former donation before the pension was fixed. Edward Phillips gives the large sum of five hundred pounds—another version of the same story; and he wrote about the same time. What remains inexplicable is, that this pension to Spenser seems to have been wholly unknown to his contemporaries—to Camden and to others—who wrote subsequently. The grant of this pension was only discovered a few years ago in the Chapel of the Rolls. The pension was only for fifty pounds; but the value of money makes the royal gift more decent than at first it would seem.
THE FAERY QUEEN.