Without rhyme or reason

Spenser is also the man believed to have crafted the phrase "without reason or a rhyme".

He was promised payment from the Queen of one hundred pounds, a so called, "reason for the rhyme". The Lord High Treasurer William Cecil, however, considered the sum too much. After a long while without receiving his payment, he sent her this quatrain:

I was promis'd on a time,

To have a reason for my rhyme:

But from that time unto this season,

I had neither rhyme or reason.

She immediately ordered Cecil to send Spenser his due sum.