The chief work of Spenser is his Faerie Queene, the object of which is “to represent all the moral virtues, assign to every virtue a Knight, to be the patron and defender of the same; in whose actions the feats of arms and chivalry, the operations of that virtue whereof he is the protector, are to be expressed, and the vices and unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the same are to be beaten down and overcome.”