bly, have written exactly as he did write, if Ariosto had not written before him; nor is it unlikely that he was guided also to some extent by the more recent example of Tasso. But his design was, in several striking features, nobler and more arduous than that of either. His deep seriousness is thoroughly unlike the mocking tone of the Orlando Furioso; he rose still higher than the Jerusalem Delivered in his earnest moral enthusiasm ; and he aimed at something much beyond either of his masters, but unfortunately at something which marred the poetic effect of his work, when he framed it so that it should be really a series of ethical allegories.

3. The leading story, doubtless, is based, not on allegory, but on traditional history. Its hero is the chivalrous Arthur of the British legends. But even he was to be wrapt up in a cloud of symbols: Gloriana, the Queen of Faerie, who gave name to the poem, and who was to be the object of the prince's reverent love, was herself an emblem of virtuous renown; while, to confuse us yet more, she was also respectfully designed to represent in some way or other the poet's sovereign, Elizabeth. If this part of the plan was to be elaborated much in the latter half of the poem, we may regret the less that we have missed it.

In the parts which we have, Arthur emerges only at rare intervals, to take a decisive but passing share in some of the events in which the secondary personages are involved. It is in the narration of those events that the poem is chiefly occupied; and in them allegory reigns supreme. All the incidents are significant of moral truths; of the moral dangers which beset the path of man, of the virtues which it is the duty of man to cherish. The personages, too, are allegories, quite as strictly as those of Bunyan's pilgrim story. Indeed the anxiety with which the double meaning is kept up, is the circumstance that chiefly removes the poem from ordinary sympathies. Yet, regarded merely as stories, the adventures possess an interest, which is almost everywhere lively and sometimes becomes intense. We often forget the hidden meaning, in the delight with which we contemplate the pictures by which it is veiled. Solitary forests spread out their glades around us; enchanted palaces and fairy gardens gleam suddenly on the eye; the pomp of tournaments glitters on vast plains; touching and sublime sentiments, couched in language marvellously sweet, are now presented as the attributes of the human personages of the tale, and now wrapt up in the disguise of gorgeous pageants.

4. The adventures of the characters, connected by no tie except the occasional interposition of Arthur, form really six inde

pendent Poetic Tales. These are related in our six extant Books, each containing twelve Cantos.

The First Book, by far the finest of all, both in idea and in execution, relates the Legend of the Red-Cross Knight, who is the type of Holiness. He is the appointed champion of the persecuted Lady Una, the representative of Truth, the daughter of a king whose realm, described in shadowy phrases, receives in one passage the name of Eden. In her service he penetrates into the labyrinth of Error, and slays the monster that inhabited it. But, under the temptations of the enchanter Archimago, who is the emblem of Hypocrisy, he is enticed away by the beautiful witch Duessa, or Falsehood, on whom the wizard has bestowed the figure of her pure rival. This separation plunges the betrayed Knight into severe suffering; and it exposes the unprotected lady to many dangers, in the description of which occurs some of the most exquisite poetry of the work. At length, in the House of Holiness, the Knight is taught Repentance. Purified and strengthened, he vanquishes the Dragon which was Una's enemy, and is betrothed to her in her father's kingdom.

In the Second Book we have the Legend of Sir Guyon, illustrating the virtue of Temperance, that is, of resistance to all allurements sensual and worldly. This part of the poem abounds, beyond all the rest, in exquisite painting of picturesque landscapes; in some of which, however, imitation of Tasso is obvious. The Legend of Britomart, or of Chastity, is the theme of the Third Book, in which, besides the heroine, are introduced Belphoebe and Amoret, two of the most beautiful of those female characters whom the poet takes such pleasure in delineating. Next comes the Legend of Friendship, personified in the knights Cambel and Triamond. In it is the tale of Florimel, a version of an old tale of the romances, embellished with an array of fine imagery, which is dwelt on with admiring delight in one of the noblest odes of Collins. Yet this Fourth Book, and the two which follow, are generally allowed to be on the whole inferior to the first three. The falling off is most perceptible when we pass to the Fifth Book, containing the Legend of Sir Artegal, who is the emblem of Justice. This story indeed is told, not only with a strength of moral sentiment unsurpassed elsewhere by the poet, but also with some of his most striking exhibitions of personification the interest, however, is weakened by the constant anxiety to bring out that subordinate signification, in which the narrative was intended to celebrate the government of Spenser's patron Lord Grey in Ireland. The Sixth Book, the Legend of Sir Calidore or of Courtesy, is apt to dissatify us through its want

12*

of unity; although some of the scenes and figures are inspired with the poet's warmest glow of fancy.*

THE MINOR POETS OF THE TIME.

5. Our file of Non-Dramatic poets from this age, beginning with the name of Spenser, will end with that of Milton. Between these two men, there were none whose genius can fairly be held equal to that of the minor play-writers. The drama would, though

* EDMUND SPENSER.

From "The Faerie Queene."

I. UNA DESERTED BY THE RED-CROSS KNIGHT.

Yet she, most faithful Lady, all this while
Forsaken, woeful, solitary maid,

Far from all people's press, as in exile,

In wilderness and wasteful deserts strayed,
To seek her Knight, who,-subtilely betrayed
Through that late vision which the Enchanter wrought,
Had her abandoned :-She, of nought afraid,

Through woods and wasteness wide him daily sought:
Yet wished tidings none of him unto her brought.

One day, nigh weary of the irksome way,
From her unhasty beast she did alight;
And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay,
In secret shadow, far from all men's sight:
From her fair head her fillet she undight,
And laid her stole aside :-her Angel's face,
As the great eye of heaven shined bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place:
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace!
It fortuned, out of the thickest wood,
A ramping lion rushëd suddenly,
Hunting full greedy after savage blood:-
Soon as the Royal Virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily,
To have at once devoured her tender corse:
But, to the prey when as he drew more nigh,
His bloody rage assuaged with remorse,

And, with the sight amazed, forgot his furious force.

Instead thereof, he kissed her weary feet,

And lick'd her lily hands, with fawning tongue,
As he her wronged innocence did weet:

Oh, how can Beauty master the most strong,
And simple Truth subdue Avenging Wrong!
Whose yielded pride and proud submission,

Still dreading death when she had markëd long,
Her heart gan melt in great compassion,
And drizzling tears did shed for pure affection.

Shakspeare's works were withdrawn, be the kind of poetry, for the sake of which the time of Elizabeth and her next successors is most worthy of admiration.

Yet the non-dramatic poetry of those two or three generations not only was abundant, but contains many specimens possessing very great excellence. Indeed the merit of the drama is a guarantee for merit here. For the same poets generally laboured in both fields; and the truth is, that the prevailing fashion, which drew away the most imaginative men to write for the stage, produced not a few indifferent dramas, whose authors might have been eminent in other walks if they had confined themselves to them.

In endeavouring to form a general notion of the large mass of literary works here lying before us, we find ourselves to be embarrassed by the remarkable variety of forms which poetry took, and in many of which also the same poet exerted himself by turns. Thus Shakspeare and Jonson, best known as dramatists, were successful writers of lyrical and other poems: Drayton and Daniel, remembered now, if at all, for their non-dramatic poems, possessed in their own day no small note as play-writers. Drayton, again, if we look beyond his plays, wrote poems belonging to almost every one of the kinds which will immediately be enumerated.

We require to classify, but cannot easily find a principle. One which is somewhat famous must be discarded at once, but, being instructive, should be described. It is that according to which

IL. ANGELS WATCHING OVER MANKIND.

And is there care in heaven, and is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,

That may compassion of their evils move?

There is:-else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts: But, oh! the exceeding grace

Of Highest God, that loves his creatures so,

And all his works with mercy doth embrace;
That blessed angels he sends to and fro,

To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!

How oft do they their silver bowërs leave,
To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant,
Against foul fiends to aid us militant!
They for us fight: they watch and duly ward,

And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love, and nothing for reward:

Oh, why should heavenly God to men have such regard

Samuel Johnson classed together, under the title of Metaphysical, a large number of the poets of James's reign and the following generation, beginning the list with Donne, and closing it with Cowley. "These were such as laboured after conceits, or novel turns of thought, usually false, and resting upon some equivocation of language or exceedingly remote analogy." This is just a description of that corrupt taste towards which our English poets leant throughout the first half of the seventeenth century, and which had had its beginning even earlier; a taste, likewise, which affected prose literature deeply, and which we have seen hurting especially the eloquence of the pulpit. It would be impossible to name any poet of the time, in whose writings symptoms of it could not be traced. The only distinction we could draw is, between those who gave way to it only occasionally, (like Shakspeare, whose besetting sin it was,) and those who indulged in it purposely and incessantly, holding its manifestations indeed to be their finest strokes of art. The disease had doubtless travelled from Italy: but it was naturalized as early as Lyly, assuming only some peculiarities which suited it for diffusion in its new climate.

6. All the poetical works of that age, whose authors demand our acquaintance, may be distributed into Seven Classes, which, though the distinctions between them are not quite exact, may easily be kept apart from each other. They are these: the Metrical Translations; those Narrative Poems whose themes may be described as Historical; the Descriptive Poems; the Pastorals; the Satires; the Didactic Poems; and the Lyrics.

The earliest of the Translations, worthless as poems, exerted perhaps greater influence than the more meritorious works which followed. They were the means of kindling, more widely than it would otherwise have spread, that mixed spirit of classicism and chivalry which breathes through so much of the Elizabethan poetry. This doubtful praise as earned, in the early part of the queen's reign, by several attempts which were alluded to when we began to study the literature of this great period. Translations from the Italian, both in prose and verse, showed themselves as early, and furnished stories to Shakspeare; and others from the French were yet more common.

We do not discover in those efforts any thing deserving to be called poetry, till we reach the translations of Marlowe, from Ovid, Lucan, and the pseudo-Musæus. An undertaking still bolder was that of the dramatist Chapman, who, beginning in 1596, published at length an entire translation of the Iliad into English Alexandrines. This work, spirited and poetical, but rough and