Editing Edmund Spenser (section)

==Rhyme and reason==
[[Thomas Fuller]], in ''Worthies of England'', included a story where the Queen told her treasurer, William Cecil, to pay Spenser £100 for his poetry. The treasurer, however, objected that the sum was too much. She said, "Then give him what is reason". Without receiving his payment in due time, Spenser gave the Queen this [[quatrain]] on one of her progresses:

<blockquote><poem>
I was promis'd on a time,
To have a reason for my rhyme:
From that time unto this season,
I receiv'd nor rhyme nor reason.
</poem></blockquote>

She immediately ordered the treasurer to pay Spenser the original £100.

This story seems to have attached itself to Spenser from [[Thomas Churchyard]], who apparently had difficulty in getting payment of his pension, the only other pension Elizabeth awarded to a poet. Spenser seems to have had no difficulty in receiving payment when it was due as the pension was being collected for him by his publisher, Ponsonby.<ref>Hadfield pp 5 & 236</ref>