Amidst such a diversity of subjects, in a poem of such an extent as "The Faerie Queene," it was not to be expected that all the poet's allegories should be perfect. Accordingly, we find that some of them are unmeaning, some inconsistent, and in others the literal and latent meaning are confounded, and their distinctions forgotten. An instance of the first kind occurs in book II., c. IX., where Prince Arthur and Guyon, having vanquished a myriad of the foes of Temperance, gain admission into the castle of Alma. This lady represents the mind, her castle the body, its portcullis the nose, its porch the mouth, its porter the tongue, and the sixteen warders in "glistering steel," circling the porch, the teeth. Alma shows them the curiosities of this fortress of man; conducts them into the kitchen or stomach, and explains the functions of digestion, &c. This is really a waste of ingenuity: the author had much better have referred us to some appropriate book in medical literature. And yet, useless and absurd as this allegory is, it has been imitated and greatly expanded by Phineas Fletcher, a great admirer and close imitator of Spenser, in his " Purple Island." As instances of inconsistency, we may refer to the allegory of Astræa, or Justice, (b. V., c. I., s. IX.,) who at all events should have been represented as pure and undefiled; and yet the poet describes her as having obtained, by "slight and earnest search," the sword Chrysaor, which Jupiter had used against the Titans; and to that of Care, (b. IV., c. V., s. XXXVII.,) who is described as a monstrous giant, and yet is said to have dwelt, with his six servants, in a little cottage, "like some poore man's nest."

In attempting the great or the marvellous, Spenser sometimes becomes extravagant, and even absurd; as, for example, in the description of the combat of the dragon and the red-cross knight, (b. I., c. XI.) This dreadful monster, which the knight finds stretched "upon the sunny side of a great hill, himself like a great hill," is represented as having a tail which fell little short of three furlongs in length. Prodigious as this tail is, the knight must have had an arm of no inconsiderable, if not of corresponding, longitude; for the monster having fixed the sting at the extremity of its tail in its antagonist's shoulder, the latter contrives to reach the other extremity, and to lop

off five joints, leaving but a stump behind. The blood which flows from the wounded dragon is sufficient to turn a watermill, &c. Although an author, in adopting the allegorical mode of writing, has the choice of whatever forms his imagination may body forth, yet, having once selected his agents, he is bound to make them act with consistency. When a poet has recourse to the aid of magic or enchantment, we can admit things beyond our experience, even though they should be apparently impossible; but when, without such means, a poet effects physical impossibilities, the vanity of his art alone strikes us; he submits to the understanding what, if left to the imagination, would have been received without difficulty into our poetical creed.

These, however, are only partial obscurations of his usually brilliant and distinct delineations: generally speaking, his allegories are distinguished by the nicest discrimination, the most pictorial representation, the most forcible and appropriate symbols. In short, he is one of the most absolute masters of allegoric writing that ever existed.

Affluent, however, as was his imagination, marvellous as were his resources, it would have been impossible, had his life been extended to a longer date than it was, to have invented all the materials out of which he has fabricated this poem. His life must have been fully occupied with business and the muses; and we have sufficient evidence, in those of his works which remain, to convince us that he wrote with a rapid pen. He felt it convenient, therefore, to appropriate some incidents and inventions which were already manufactured. In so doing, he has followed the course of other men of genius. Ariosto did the same thing; and Shakspeare has not only adopted many of his plots from former plays, but has sometimes condescended to borrow images from them. Spenser's mind was filled with the stories and incidents of old romances, and he availed himself of them without scruple; but he has made use of them like a skilful artist; he has woven them into his work with variations and improvements; he has ripened them by the warmth of his own genius; they have become richer in flavor, and more glowing in color, by the process. To trace out the various things which the poet has adopted from preceding writers; to

point out in what respect he has added to, or altered and improved them, might be an agreeable occupation, but would require a larger space than the limits of a preliminary essay will allow. It will be sufficient for our present purpose to indicate two or three examples of what we have asserted. To the old and favorite romance of "Morte d'Arthur," he was particularly indebted. It supplied him with many names for his agents; from it he derived the account of the birth and education of Sir Tristram; the mantle made of the beards of knights; the Blatant Beast, or Scandal, there called "the Questing Beast, that had in shape a head like a serpent's head, and a body like a leopard; buttocks like a lion, and footed like a hart: and in his body there was such a noise, as it had been the noise of thirty couples of hounds questing; and such a noise that beast made wheresoever he went," &c.

The ballad of "Sir Bevis of Hampton" furnished him with the well, by whose revivifying power the knight is restored to his lost vigor; and the ballad of "The Boy and the Mantle," with the hint for Florimel's girdle. Spenser has also drawn largely from the ancient classical writers, and the poets of Italy. From Ariosto he has borrowed Astolpho's horn

"A horne in which if he but once do blow,

The noise thereof shall trouble men so sore,

That all both stout and faint shall flie therefro" "—

(Harrington's Translation, b. XV., s. X.)

which he has given to Prince Arthur; and in the hands of Britomart he has placed the gold lance of Bradamante -a spear

"With head whereof if any touched were,

Straight ways to fall to grounde they must be faine."

Harrington, b. XXIII., s. IX.

There are various other incidents in "The Faerie Queene," which are common to most of the romances of chivalry, in which Spenser has copied the manners of that institution with great accuracy, but which it is unnecessary to mention specifically, as they will be recognized by every reader who is at all acquainted with that kind of literature.

It is remarkable that, in the Second Canto of the Third Book, the poet treats Guyon and the red-cross knight as one and the same person.

It is proper to refer the reader to faults of less importance than those already described-such as the poet's repetitions, his redundancies, and the occasional obscurities which arise from his frequent use of ellipses; as where he speaks of the "other leg" of Occasion, and the "other blincked eye" of Malbecco, without any antecedent mention of either. These faults are almost entirely owing to the stanza in which the poem is written; for, whilst it exhibits the most perfect specimen of rhythmical modulation in the language, it has subjected the poet to various inconveniences. The necessity of so many identical cadences as this stanza requires, obliged him to resort to expedients which have occasionally diminished its energy; it frequently led him to an amplification of the thought, or to a virtual repetition of it with a slight variation in the circumstances, and compelled him to have recourse to trifling circumlocutions and redundancy of expression, which weaken the force and effect of his sentiments and descriptions. The same necessity has produced occasional meanness or impropriety of expression, and has obliged him repeatedly to alter the orthography of words, that, if he cannot satisfy the ear, he may at least please the eye. After all, we may well wonder at the variety, as well as harmony, which Spenser has communicated to this stanza; and we only mention those little defects, because, in a criticism of such a work, they ought not to be omitted.

Spenser has been censured for his misrepresentations of the mythological creed of the ancients; but a violation of classical fiction is, after all, no very heinous offence, for the ancients themselves did not always agree in their representations of it. His practice of mingling the mysteries of Christian theology with the creations of his own brain, may not be so defensible; although it is manifest, from the uniform tenor of his works, that the poet is blameless as to any intentional irreverence on the subject of religion.

The poet has been also censured, and justly, for the disgusting images and coarse expressions with which he has accompanied some of his descriptions; as, for example, those of Error and Envy,

which are perfectly revolting. His conception of the disagreeable and offensive, was as vivid as his sense of that which is beautiful; and his object being to excite dislike, he appears to have considered that no terms could be too forcible for the purpose. He was injudicious, however, in not distinguishing between that which is forcible and that which is merely calculated to excite loathing and disgust: a portion of these disagreeable sensations is inevitably transferred from the objects represented, to the poem and the poet; and as the images and expressions we have been reprobating are perfectly unnecessary for the purpose of exciting the reader's dislike of the false and the vicious, it is to be lamented that Spenser should not have been more careful in his choice of them.

To increase the obscurity of this extraordinary production, Spenser has not only given an allegorical turn to it, but has invested it with a political meaning, and designed Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers under the ideal inhabitants of the Land of Faerie. The only one whom he has expressly indicated is Elizabeth, who is represented by Gloriana, or the fairy queen. The other individuals pointed out by critics as being also shadowed forth, are merely conjectural.

Occasional indications of a querulous and dissatisfied disposition break out in different parts of his works, and apparently without any sufficient foundation. For, according to the measure of reward which poets then received, Spenser had no reason to complain; but, on the contrary, until the spoliation of his property, which immediately preceded his death, might have said, in the language of an ancient poet, "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage." But he had formed a lofty estimate of his own powers, and appears to have considered his remuneration by no means equal to the value of his literary productions.

The celebrated

Spenser has been variously characterized. satirist, Thomas Nash, terms him "Fame's eldest favorite;" Drayton, the "learned Colin;" Dryden observes of him, “No man was ever born with a greater genius than Spenser, or had more knowledge to support it." In another place he says, “I must acknowledge that Virgil in Latin, and Spenser in English, have been my masters; " and Milton calls him "our sage, serious Spenser, whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than