teach me a little of his art;
I could fill up my time here with making verses."

"And who would be your theme, fair sir?" said Spenser.

"No 'who' at all. I don't want to make sonnets to blue eyes, nor black
either: but if I could put down some of the things I saw in the Spice
Islands--"

"Ah," said Raleigh, "he would beat you out of Parnassus, Mr. Secretary.
Remember, you may write about Fairyland, but he has seen it."

"And so have others," said Spenser; "it is not so far off from any one
of us. Wherever is love and loyalty, great purposes, and lofty souls,
even though in a hovel or a mine, there is Fairyland."

"Then Fairyland should be here, friend; for you represent love, and
Leigh loyalty; while, as for great purposes and lofty souls, who so fit
to stand for them as I, being (unless my enemies and my conscience are
liars both) as ambitious and as proud as Lucifer's own self?"

"Ah, Walter, Walter, why wilt always slander thyself thus?"

"Slander? Tut.--I do but give the world a fair challenge, and tell it,
'There--you know the worst of me: come on and try a fall, for either
you or I must down.' Slander? Ask Leigh here, who has but known me a
fortnight, whether I am not as vain as a peacock, as selfish as a fox,
as imperious as a bona roba, and ready to make a cat's paw of him or any
man, if there be a chestnut in the fire: and yet the poor fool cannot
help loving me, and running of my errands, and taking all my schemes and
my dreams for gospel; and verily believes now, I think, that I shall be
the man in the moon some day, and he my big dog."

"Well," said Amyas, half apologetically, "if you are the cleverest man
in the world what harm in my thinking so?"

"Hearken to him, Edmund! He will know better when he has outgrown this
same callow trick of honesty, and learnt of the great goddess Detraction
how to show himself wiser than the wise, by pointing out to the world
the fool's motley which peeps through the rents in the philosopher's
cloak. Go to, lad! slander thy equals, envy thy betters, pray for an eye
which sees spots in every sun, and for a vulture's nose to scent
carrion in every rose-bed. If thy friend win a battle, show that he has
needlessly thrown away his men; if he lose one, hint that he sold it;
if he rise to a place, argue favor; if he fall from one, argue divine
justice. Believe nothing, hope nothing, but endure all things, even to
kicking, if aught may be got thereby; so shalt thou be clot