Finally, near the end of the story, Don Quixote thought he saw a lady in distress and meant to rescue her. But the lady was only an image that some men were carrying from one place to another. They laughed at Don Quixote and then they beat him until he was almost dead. Sancho was distracted with grief and made a great lamentation over his master, praising him for all his virtues. Here is part of what Sancho said of Don Quixote: "O humbler of the proud, and stately to the humbled, undertaker of perils, endurer of affronts, enamoured without cause, imitator of good men, {139} whip of the evil, enemy of the wicked, and, in conclusion, knight-errant than which no greater thing may be said!" After this, Don Quixote was so bruised and sick that he and Sancho had to go home. And so ended Don Quixote's adventures. Cervantes' novel was a success as soon as it was published. All the world laughed at Don Quixote, but all the world loved him too. He has never been forgotten, or Sancho either. A very great many people carry about with them in their minds a picture of a tall, lean man, in rusty armour, riding a very thin horse, and carrying a lance. A short, fat man on an ass rides behind him. These are Don Quixote and Sancho. Now we know something of what it means when people say this man or that man has been "tilting at windmills". An English poet, Edmund Spenser, who lived in Queen Elizabeth's time, wrote a famous poem called _The Faery Queen_ which tells the story of the Red Cross Knight. After a long period of wars and religious troubles, Spenser was the first noted English poet, since the time of Chaucer, to write exquisite verse. He was the forerunner of a greater poet who, as you know, was Shakespeare. We will learn some facts concerning Chaucer's history in another chapter. People love to read Spenser's _Faery Queen_. The first line of the poem seems to tell how melodious and sweet the whole poem is to be. "A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine." Spenser was the first to show the music, grace, and inexhaustible riches of the English tongue. {140} The Red Cross Knight had been given a hard task. He was to kill a fierce dragon. In the first book of _The Faery Queen_, Canto XI, you will find a description of this dragon. The Red Cross Knight was sworn to defend Una, a beautiful maiden, but he was deceived by enchantments, and Una was left to wander alone in woods and on wastes. Here is Spenser's beautiful description of Una:-- Her angels face, As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, And made a sunshine in the shadie place; When Una was wandering alone in a wood, a lion sprang at her out of a thicket. But when the lion saw her, he kissed her feet and licked her hands, and after that he was her defender.