ABSTRACT
Mr. Sidney (afterward Sir Philip) then in full glory at Court, was the Person, to whom [Spenser] design’d the first Discovery of himself; and to that purpose took an occasion to go one morning to LeicesterHouse, furnish’t only with a modest confidence, and the Ninth Canto of the First Book of his Faery Queen: He waited not long, e’re he found the lucky season for an address of the Paper to his hand; who having read the Twenty-eighth Stanza of Despair, (with some signs in his Countenance of being much affected, and surpris’d with what he had read) turns suddenly to his Servant, and commands him to give the Party that presented the Verses to him Fifty Pounds; the Steward stood speechless, and unready, till his Master having past over another Stanza, bad him give him an Hundred Pound; the Servant something stagger’d at the humour his Master was in, mutter’d to this purpose, That by the semblance of the Man that brought the Paper, Five Pounds would be a proper Reward; but Mr.
Sidney having read the following Stanza, commands him to give Two Hundred Pounds, and that very speedily, least advancing his Reward, proportionably to the heigth of his Pleasure in reading, he should hold himself oblig’d to give him more than he had: Withal he sent an invitation to the Poet, to see him at those hours, in which he would be most at leasure. After this Mr. Spenser, by degrees, so far gain’d upon him, that he became not only his Patron, but his Friend too; entred him at Court, and obtain’d of the Queen the Grant of a Pention to him as Poet Laureat: But in this, his Fate was unkind; for it prov’d only a Poetical Grant, the payment, after a very short time, being stopt by a great Councellour, who studied more the Queen’s Profit than her Diversion, and told Her, ’twas beyond Example to give so great a Pention to a Ballad-maker.
