"The miser threw himself, as an offall,
Straight at his foot in base humility."
In Milton's Comus, which was written about fifty years after the first three books of the Faerie Queene, the present signification of the word is complete:
"You may as well spread out the unsunn'd heaps
Of miser's treasure by an outlaw's den,
And tell me it is safe, as bid one hope
Danger will sink on opportunity," &c.
J. D. Gardner.
Bottisham.
[The modern restricted use of the word miser is subsequent to Shakspeare's time for in Part I. King Henry VI., Act V. Sc. 4.,