well be said to make a fair experiment of its power. The poet may cover his moral meaning under a slight and transparent veil of fiction; but he has no right to muffle it up in foldings which hide the form and symmetry of truth. Upon the whole, if I may presume to measure the imperfections of so great and venerable a genius, I think we may say, that if his popularity be less than universal and complete, it is not so much owing to his obsolete language, nor to degeneracy of modern taste, nor to his choice of allegory as a subject, as to the want of that consolidating and crowning strength which alone can establish works of fiction in the favour of all readers and of all ages. This want of strength, it is but justice to say, is either solely or chiefly apparent, when we examine the entire structure of his poem, or so large a portion of it, as to feel that it does not impel or sustain our curiosity in proportion to its length. To the beauty of insulated passages who can be blind? The sublime description of" Him who with the night durst ride; the House of Riches; the Court of Jealousy; the Masque of Cupid, and other parts too many to enumerate, are so splendid, that after reading them, we feel it for the moment invidious to ask if they are symmetrically united into a whole. Succeeding generations have acknowledged the pathos and sweetness of his strains, and the new contour and enlarged dimensions of grace which he gave to English poetry. He is the poetical father of a Milton and a Thomson. Gray ha bitually read him, when he wished to frame his thoughts for composition, and there are few eminent poets in the language who have not been essentially indebted to him."* With these observations, which appear to me as justly conceived, as elegantly expressed, the Editor of the Specimens of the Early English Poets agrees. "Mr. Warton has offered the best excuse that can be alleged for the defects of the Fairy Queen, ascribing the wildness and irregularity of its plan, to Spenser's predilection for Ariosto. But the Orlando Furioso, though absurd and extravagant, is uniformly amusing. We are enabled to travel to the conclusion of our journey without 66 Reading Spenser with singular delight. I need not say, that the allegory is to be forgotten, and I must admit that the love affairs and combats are almost as uniform as honour battles. In this respect it resembles all other tales of chivalry: but the tale is told in such sweetly flowing verse, and adorned by such enchanting pictures, with a style which so perfectly unites simplicity and elegance, that whoever conquers the first difficulty, must, as I think, have an unpoetical soul, if he afterwards refrain from proceeding; there is no poet in whom you may so often trace Milton. * * * I have finished the Fairy Queen; I never parted from a long poem with so much regret. He is a poet of a most musical ear,—of a tender heart,—of a peculiarly rich, soft, fertile, and flowing fancy. His verse always flows with ease and nature, most abundantly and sweetly: his diffusion is not only pardonable, but agreeable. Grandeur and energy are not his characteristic qualities. He seems to me a most genuine poet, and to be justly placed after Shakespeare and Milton, and above all other English poets." Vide Sir James Mackintosh's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 242 (Journal). fatigue, though often bewildered by the windings of the road, and surprised by the abrupt change of our travelling companions; whereas it is scarcely possible to accompany Spenser's allegorical heroes to the end of their excursions. They want flesh and blood, a want for which nothing can compensate. The personification of abstract ideas furnishes the most brilliant images of poetry; but these meteor-forms which startle and delight us when our senses are flurried by passion, must not be submitted to our cool and deliberate examination. A ghost must not be dragged into daylight. Personification protracted into allegory, affects a modern reader almost as disagreeably as inspiration continued to madness. This, however, was the fault of the age, and all that genius could do for such a subject has been done by Spenser. His glowing fancy, his unbounded command of language, and his astonishing facility and sweetness of versification, has placed him in the very first rank of English Poets."* I will now add a few observations from T. Warton on the allegorical nature of the poem we have been considering. "At length, compositions professedly allegorical, with which that age abounded, were resolved into allegories for which they were never intended. In the famous Romaunt of the Rose,' written about 1310, the poet couches the difficulties of an ardent lover in attaining the object of his pas * Vide Ellis's Specimens of Old English Poets, ii. 233. sion under the allegory of a rose, which is gathered in a delicious, but almost inaccessible garden. The Theologists prove this rose to be the white rose of Jericho, the new Jerusalem, a state of grace, divine wisdom, the holy virgin, or eternal beatitude, at none of which obstinate heretics can ever arrive. The Chemists pretended, that it was the philosophers' stone. The Civilians, that it was the most consummate point of equitable decision and the Physicians, that it was an infallible panacea. In a word, other professions in the most elaborate commentaries explained away the lover's rose, into the mysteries of their own respective sciences. In conformity to this practice, Tasso allegorized his own poem; and a flimsy structure of morality was raised on the chimerical conceptions of Ariosto's Orlando. In the year 1577, a translation of part of Amadis de Gaul appeared in France, with a learned preface, developing the valuable stores of profound instruction concealed under the naked letter of the old romances, which were discernible only to the intelligent, and totally unperceived by common readers who, instead of plucking the fruit, were obliged to rest contented with le simple fleur de la lecture litterale. Even Spenser, at a late period, could not indulge his native impulse to descriptions of chivalry without framing such a story as conveyed under the dark conceit of ideal champions, a set of historic transactions, and an exemplification of the nature of the twelve moral virtues. He presents his fantastic Queen with a rich romantic mirror, which shewed the wondrous achievements of her magnificent ancestry :— And thou, O fairest Princess under sky, In this fayre Mirrour mayst beholde thy face, "It was not, however, solely from an unmeaning and a wanton spirit of refinement, that the fashion of resolving every thing into allegory so universally prevailed. The same apology may be offered for the cabalistic interpreters both of the classics and the old romances. The former, not willing that these books should be quite exploded which contained the ancient mythology, laboured to reconcile the apparent absurdities of the pagan system to the Christian mysteries, by demonstrating a figurative resemblance. The latter, as true learning began to dawn, with a view of supporting for a while the expiring credit of giants and magicians, were compelled to palliate these monstrous incredibilities, by a bold attempt to unravel the mystic web which had been woven by fairy hands, and by showing that truth was hid under the gorgeous veil of Gothic invention." "Amid the gloom of superstition, in an age of the grossest credulity and ignorance, a taste for the wonders of oriental fiction was introduced by • Warton's History of English Poetry, I. cclxvii. Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum. f |