y chambre longe time hath be,
Ye, for an heren cloute to wrap in me."
But yet to me she will not don that grace,
For which ful pale and welked is my face."

They then ask the old man where they shall find out Death to kill
him, and he sends them on an errand which ends in the death of all
three. We hear no more of him, but it is Death that they have
encountered!

The interval between Chaucer and Spenser is long and dreary. There is
nothing to fill up the chasm but the names of Occleve, "ancient Gower,"
Lydgate, Wyatt, Surry, and Sackville. Spenser flourished in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, and was sent with Sir John Davies into Ireland, of
which he has left behind him some tender recollections in his
description of the bog of Allan, and a record in an ably written paper,
containing observations on the state of that country and the means of
improving it, which remain in full force to the present day. Spenser
died at an obscure inn in London, it is supposed in distressed
circumstances. The treatment he received from Burleigh is well known.
Spenser, as well as Chaucer, was engaged in active life; but the genius
of his poetry was not active: it is inspired by the love of ease, and
relaxation from all the cares and business of life. Of all the poets, he
is the most poetical. Though much later than Chaucer, his obligations to
preceding writers were less. He has in some measure borrowed the plan of
his poem (as a number of distinct narratives) from Ariosto; but he has
engrafted upon it an exuberance of fancy, and an endless voluptuousness
of sentiment, which are not to be found in the Italian writer. Farther,
Spenser is even more of an inventor in the subject-matter. There is an
originality, richness, and variety in his allegorical personages and
fictions, which almost vies with the splendor of the ancient mythology.
If Ariosto transports us into the regions of romance, Spenser's poetry
is all fairy-land. In Ariosto, we walk upon the ground, in a company,
gay, fantastic, and adventurous enough. In Spenser, we wander in another
world, among ideal beings. The poet takes and lays us in the lap of a
lovelier nature, by the sound of softer streams, among greener hills and
fairer valleys. He paints nature, not as we find it, but as we expected
to find it; and fulfils the delightful promise of our youth. He waves
his wand of enchantment--and at once embodies airy beings, and throws
a delicious veil