s that he 'refused twenty
pieces sent him by my lord Essex, and said he was sure
he had no time to spend them.' This story, if it is
anything more than a mere vulgar rumour, so far as it
shows anything, shows that he was in no such very
extreme need of succour. Had his destitution been so
complete, he would have accepted the pieces for his
family, even though 'he had no time to spend them
himself.' It must be remembered that he was still in
receipt of a pension from the crown; a pension of no
very considerable amount, perhaps, but still large
enough to satisfy the pangs of hunger. But numerous
passages might be quoted to show that he died in
somewhat straitened circumstances.

It was said, some thirty-four years after
Spenser's death, that in his hurried flight from
Ireland the remaining six books of the _Faerie Queene_
were lost. But it is very unlikely that those books
were ever completed.{6} Perhaps some fragments of them
may have perished in the flames at Kilcolman--certainly
only two cantos have reached us. These were first
printed in 1611, when the first six books were
republished. The general testimony of his
contemporaries is that his song was broken off in the
midst. Says Browne in his _Britannia's Pastorals_
(Book ii. s. 1):--

But ere he ended his melodious song,
An host of angels flew the cloud among,
And rapt this swan from his attentive mates
To make him one of their associates
In heaven's faire choir.

One S. A. Cokain writes:--

If, honour'd Colin, thou hadst lived so long
As to have finished thy Fairy song,
Not only mine but all tongues would confess,
Thou hadst exceeded old M{ae}onides.

He was buried near Chaucer--by his own wish, it is
said--in Westminster Abbey, 'poetis funus ducentibus,'
with poets following him to the grave--bearing the
pall, as we might say--the Earl of Essex furnishing the
funeral expenses, according to Camden. It would seem
from a passage in Browne's _Britannia's Pastorals_
'that the Queen ordered a monument to be erected over
him, but that the money was otherwise appropriated by
one of her agents.' The present monument, restored in
1778, was erected by Anne, Countess of Dorset, in 1620.

His widow married again before 1603, as we learn
from a petition presented to the Lord Chancellor of
Ireland in that year, in which Sylvanus sues to recover
from her and her husband Roger Seckerstone certa