Sunne of the world, great glory of the sky, That all the earth doth lighten with thy rayes, Great Gloriana, greatest majesty, Pardon thy shepherd, 'mongst so many lays As he hath sung of thee in all his days, To make one mencine of thy poor handmaid, And underneath thy feet to place her praise, That when thy glory shall be far displayed In future age, of her this mention may be made." _Faërie Queene_, b. xii., c. x. These were known in Spenser's days to be an affectionate monument of immortal verse to his wife, still more nobly erected in his Epithalamion; and to identify it more, in his Amoretti he tells us that his queen, his mother, and his wife were all of the same name. "The which three times thrice happy hath me made With gifts of body, fortune, and of minde, Ye _three Elizabeths_ forever live, That thus such graces unto me did give." Here, too, he enjoyed the memorable visit of Sir Walter Raleigh, which he commemorates in Colin Clout. He had now ready for the press the first three books of his Faërie Queene; and these he read to Raleigh during his visit, probably as he has described it in pastoral style, as they sat together under the green alders on the banks of the Mulla. "I sate, as was my trade, Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hore, Keeping my sheep among the coolly shade Of the green alders by the Mulla's shore. There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out; Whether allured with my pipe's delight, Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about, Or thither led by chance, I know not right, Whom when I askéd from what place he came, And how he hight, himself he did ycleep The Shepherd of the Ocean by name, And said he came far from the main sea deep. He, sitting me beside in the same shade, Provoked me to play some pleasant fit," &c. Raleigh was enchanted with the poem. He was just returned from a voyage to Portugal, and was now bound for England. He was, it appears, himself weary of his own location, for he soon after sold it to the Earl of Cork. He pressed Spenser to accompany him, put his poem to press, and by means of its fame to win the more earnest patronage of Queen Elizabeth.