In good faith I had once again nigh forgotten your _Faerie Queene_; howbeit, by good chance, I have now sent her home at the last neither in better or worse case than I found her. And must you of necessity have my judgement of her indeed? To be plain, I am void of all judgement, if your _Nine Comedies_, whereunto in imitation of Herodotus, you give the names of the Nine Muses (and in one man's fancy not unworthily), come not nearer Ariosto's comedies, either for the fineness of plausible elocution, or the rareness of poetical invention, than that _Elvish Queen_ doth to his _Orlando Furioso_, which notwithstanding you will needs seem to emulate, and hope to overgo, as you flatly professed yourself in one of your last letters. Besides that you know, it hath been the usual practice of the most exquisite and odd wits in all nations, and specially in Italy rather to show, and advance themselves that way than any other: as, namely, those three notorious discoursing heads, Bibiena, Machiavel, and Aretino did (to let Bembo and Ariosto pass) with the great admiration and wonderment of the whole country: being indeed reputed matchable in all points, both for conceit of wit and eloquent deciphering of matters, either with Aristophanes and Menander in Greek, or with Plautus and Terence in Latin, or with any other in any other tongue. But I will not stand greatly with you in your own matters. If so be the _Faery Queene_ be fairer in your eye than the Nine Muses, and Hobgoblin run away with the garland from Apollo: mark what I say, and yet I will not say that I thought, but there is an end for this once, and fare you well, till God or some good angel put you in a better mind. It is plain on which side Spenser's own judgement inclined. He had probably written the comedies, as he had written English hexameters, out of deference to others, or to try his hand. But the current of his own secret thoughts, those thoughts, with their ideals and aims, which tell a man what he is made for, and where his power lies, set another way. The _Fairy Queen was_ 'fairer in his eye than the Nine Muses, and Hobgoblin did run away with the garland from Apollo.' What Gabriel Harvey prayed for as the 'better mind' did not come. And we cannot repine at a decision which gave us, in the shape which it took at last, the allegory of the _Fairy Queen_.