Or Shrines, made of the metal most desir'd,
To make their Memories for ever live,
For how can mortal immortality give?
For deeds do die, however nobly done,
And thoughts of men do in themselves decay,
But wise words taught in numbers for to run,
Recorded by the Muses, live for aye;
Ne may with storming showers be wash'd away,
Ne bitter breathing with harmful blast,
Nor age, nor envy, shall them ever wast.

There passeth a story commonly told and believed, that Mr. _Spenser_
presenting his Poems to Queen _Elizabeth_, she highly affected
therewith, commanded the Lord _Cecil_, her Treasurer, to give him an
Hundred Pound; and when the Treasurer (a good Steward of the Queen's
Money) alledged, that Sum was too much for such a matter; then give
him, quoth the Queen, _what is reason_; but was so busied, or seemed to
be so, about matters of higher concernment, that Mr. _Spenser_ received
no reward: whereupon he presented this Petition in a small piece of
Paper to the Queen in her progress.

I was promis'd on a time,
To have reason for my rime,
From that time unto this season,
I receiv'd nor rime nor reason.

This tart reflect so wrought upon the Queen, that she gave strict order
(not without some check to her Treasurer) for the present payment of
the hundred pounds she first intended him.