By Philip Sidney's influence Spenser had been sent to Ireland as secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, whose recall was now considered certain. Sir Henry Sidney would have been willing to return as Deputy with his son under him; but, having been badly supported in the past, he stipulated that the Queen should reward his long service by a peerage and a grant of money or lands as a public mark of her confidence. Philip found Sir Fulke Greville in his room, and with him Edward Dyer, who had come to discuss a letter from Edmund Spenser, which he wished his friends to hear. 'He fears he shall lose his place if Lord Grey be recalled, and beseeches me,' Philip said, 'to do my best that he should remain secretary to whomsoever the Queen may appoint.' 'And that will be an easy matter, methinks,' Dyer said, 'if the rumour is true that your good father is again to be appointed Deputy of Ireland, with you for his helper.' 'Contradict that rumour, good Ned,' Philip said. 'There is but the barest chance of the Queen's reinstating my father, and if, indeed, it happened so, I should not accept the post under him. I will write to our friend Spenser and bid him take courage. His friends will not desert him. But I have here a stanza or two of the _Fairie Queene_, for which Edmund begs me to seek your approval or condemnation.' 'It will be the first,' Fulke Greville said, 'as he very well knows, and it will not surprise me to find our good friend Harvey at last giving him his meed of praise, albeit he was so rash as to say that hexameters in English are either like a lame gosling that draweth one leg after, or like a lame dog that holdeth one leg up.' Fulke Greville laughed, saying,-- 'A very apt simile; at least, for any attempt I was bold enow to make; but read on, Philip. I see a whole page of Edmund's somewhat cramped writing.' 'It is but a fragment,' Philip said, 'but Edmund makes a note below that he had in his mind a fair morning, when we walked together at Penshurst, and that the sounds and sights he here describes in verse are wafted to him from that time.' 'Why do you sigh as you say that, Philip? Come, man, let us have no melancholy remembrances, when all ought to be bright and gay.' 'The past time has ever somewhat of sadness as we live in it again. Have you never heard, Fulke, of the hope deferred that maketh a sick heart, nor of the hunger of the soul for the tree of life, which is to be ever denied?' 'I am in no mood for such melancholy,' was the answer. 'Let us hear what Spenser saith of that time of which you speak. I'll warrant we shall find it hard to pick out faults in what he writes therein. Then Philip read,--