While he had dreamed his dreams and sung his songs in
the valley, there had been curses muttered against him
from the hills around. At last the day of vengeance
came. The outraged natives rushed down upon Kilcolman;
the poet and his family barely made their escape; his
home was plundered and burned. According to Ben
Jonson, in the conversation with Drummond, quoted
above, not all his family escaped; one little child,
new born, perished in the flames. But, indeed, the
fearfulness of this event needs no exaggeration. In
profound distress Spenser arrived once more in London,
bearing a despatch from Sir Thomas Norreys, President
of Munster, to the Secretary of State, and of course
himself full of direct and precise information as to
the Irish tumult, having also drawn up an address to
the Queen on the subject. Probably, the hardships and
horrors he had undergone completely prostrated him. On
January 16, 1599, he died in Westminster. As to the
exact place, a manuscript note found by Brand, the
well-known antiquary, on the title-page of a copy of
the second edition of the _Faerie Queene_, though not
of indisputable value, may probably enough be accepted,
and it names King Street. Ben Jonson says, 'he died
for lack of bread;' but this must certainly be an
exaggeration. No doubt he returned to England
'inops'--in a state of poverty--as Camden says; but it
is impossible to believe that he died of starvation.
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