"Your's not worthy any name or like, "W. R." There are some who see in this letter merely an artifice to play upon the senile affections of a doting woman. They write nimbly of true nobility: they describe the deterioration of an old woman's body; they ask, could a man care for such a person? and assert that all Ralegh desired was money and appointments. Their point of view is wearisome and false: it leaves the bad taste that the report of divorce-court proceedings leaves--with that pettiness and familiarity, which is disgusting. Meanwhile Ralegh remained in prison: and his enemies triumphed at his downfall. It is refreshing to read Spenser's account of the story, written a little after the event, as an episode of the "Faërie Queene." It clears the air with its gentleness and that sweet mingling of humour and sadness. Belphoebe has left the squire with Amoret, and comes back. "There she him found by that new lovely Mate Who lay the whiles in swoune, full sadly set, From her faire eyes wiping the deawy wet Which softly stild and kissing them atweene, And handling soft the hurts which she did get:... "Which when she saw with sodaine glauncing eye, Her noble heart, with sight thereof was fild With deep disdaine and great indignity, That in her wrath she thought them both have thrild With that selfe arrow which the Carle had kild: Yet held her wrathfull hand from vengeance sore: But drawing nigh, ere he her well beheld, 'Is this the paith?' she said--and said no more But turned her face and fled away for evermore." He smiles a little at the intensity of the squire's grief, but makes no hint at his insincerity, and he could have done so quite easily without injuring his friend, Ralegh. All through the character of Timias the Squire, he dwells on the impetuosity of his feeling with kindly humour. For Spenser must have often teased Ralegh on that terrible restless energy which drove him from experience to experience, and from the height of enthusiasm to the depth of despair. "Do it with thy Might" was a singularly characteristic device. "And his faire lockes, that wont with ointment sweet To be embalm'd, and sweat out dainty dew, He let to grow and griesly to concrew, Uncomb'd, uncurl'd, and carelesly unshed." His wife was a lady named Elizabeth Throgmorton, daughter of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton. Much is not known of her: enough, however, is known to prove that she was a woman of character and attainments. The marriage, in spite of its inaugural storm, was a success.