of two ladies, personated as two swans in these harmonious lines and "The Epithalamium" on the poet's own nuptial's or, as the poet notes, "Song made in lieu of many ornaments, With which my Love should duely have been decked." One feature in Spenser's versification seems to have escaped notice, although Warton has expressly written a dissertation on that subject. It is Spenser's discreet use of alliteration; never obtrusive, but falling naturally into the verse, it may escape our perception while it is acting on our feeling. Unconsciously or by habit, his ear became the echo of his imagination; sound was the response of thought, and, as much as his epithets, scattered the "orient hues" of his fancy. Alliteration and epithets, which with mechanical versificators are a mere artifice, because only an artifice, and glare and glitter, charm by their consonance when they rise out of the emotions of the true poet.f The Lee is the stream. I offer some instances of alliteration; but the beauty of such lines can only be rightly judged by the context. "In woods, in waves, in wars, she wonts to dwell And will be found with peril and with pain," "Such as a lamp whose life does fade away, Horrible, hideous, roaring with hoarse cry.' "All the day before the sunny rays, He used to slug or sleep, in slothful shade." "Unpitied, unplagued, of foe or friend." "And with sharp shrilling shriek do bootless cry." Some persons have been deterred from venturing on the "Faery Queen" from a notion that the style had rusted with time, and is as obsolete as chivalry itself. This popular prejudice has been fostered by an opinion of Ben Jonson, which probably referred chiefly to "The Shepherd's Calendar," where Spenser had adopted a system of Chaucerian words, which to us is more curious than fortunate, and which on the first publication required a glossary. This system he abandoned in his romantic epic; but he loved to sprinkle some remaining graces of antiquity, some naïve expressions, or some picturesque words; and his modern imitators, amid their elaborate pomp, have felt the secret charm, and have mottled their Spenserian stanza with these archaisms. Of all poets Spenser excelled in the pictorial faculty. His circumstantial descriptions are minute yet vivid. They are, indeed, exuberant, for he loved not to quit his work while he could bring the object closer to the eye. This diffusion, flowing with the melody of his verse, often raises the illusion of revery till we seem startled by reality, and we appear to have beheld what only we have been told.* Poet of poets! Spenser *Spenser has suffered a criticism from Mr. Campbell, who, a great poet himself, has otherwise done ample justice to his ancient master. "It must certainly be owned that in description he exhibits nothing of the brief strokes and robust power which characterize the very greatest poets." Certain it is Spenser is rarely "brief and robust ;" but contrary natures cannot operate in the same genius. If Spenser rarely shows the strength and brevity of "the very greatest poets," so may it be said that "the very greatest poets" rarely rival the charm of his diffusion; or, as Mr. Campbell himself attests, in "verse more magnificently descriptive." But the voice of Poetry is more potent than its criticism, and truly says Mr. Campbell- —"We shall nowhere find more airy and expansive images of visionary things, a sweeter tone of sentiment, or a finer flush in the color of language, than in this Rubens of English Poetry." Twining was a scholar, deeply versed in classical lore, which he has зhown to great advantage in his Version of and Commentary on Aristotle's Treatise of Poetry. In his Dissertations" on Poetical and Musical Imitation" prefixed to this work, our critic is quite at Home with Pope and Goldsmith, but he seems wholly shut out from Spenser! In a note VOL. II.-12 made a poet at once of Cowley, and once lent an elegant simplicity to Thomson. Gray was accustomed to open Spenser when he would frame "Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn;" and Milton, who owned Spenser to have been his master as well as his predecessor, lingered amid his to his first Dissertation he tells us "the following stanza of Spenser has been much admired :". "The joyous birds shrouded in a cheareful shade, The gentle-warbling wind low answered to all."t Our critic observes that Dr. Warton says of these lines, that "they are of themselves a complete concert of the most delicious music." Indeed, this very stanza in Spenser has been celebrated long before Joseph Warton wrote, and often since; now listen to our learned Twining · "It is unwillingly that I differ from a person of so much taste, I cannot consider as music, much less as 'delicious music,' a mixture of incompatible sounds of sounds musical with sounds unmusical. The singing of birds cannot possibly be 'attempred' to the notes of a human voice. The mixture is, and must be, disagreeable. To a person listening to a concert of voices and instruments, the interruption of singing. birds, wind, and water-falls, would be little better than the torment of Hogarth's enraged musician. Further, the description itself is, like too many of Spenser's coldly elaborate, and indiscriminately minute. Of the expressions, some are feeble and without effect, as 'joyous birds'-- some evidently improper, as 'trembling voices' and' cheerful shades ;' for there cannot be a greater fault in a voice than to be tremulous, and cheerful is surely an unhappy epithet applied to shade- some cold and labored, and such as betray too plainly the necessities of rhyme; such is — "The waters-fall with difference discreet." " Such is the anti-poetical and technical criticism! Imagine a musicmaster, who never read a line of poetry, attempting to perform the "delicious music" of our poet-or a singing-master, who had never heard a "joyous bird," tuning up some fair pupil's "trembling voice," and we might have expected this criticism from such "enraged musician!" Would our critic insist on having a philharmonic concert, or a simple †The Faery Queen, book II., canto xii., st. 71. musings, and with many a Spenserian image touched into perfection his own sublimity. In associating the name of Spenser with Milton and Gray, we are reminded of the distinctness of his poetic faculty, and the difference of his personal character. Spenser, tender, elegant, and fanciful, rarely participated in their condensed energies or the severity of their greatness; the personal character of our courtly poet was moulded by his position in society. When we float along the stream of his melodious song, conscious only of its beauty, we do not often pause at elevations which raise the feeling of the sublime. Such daring visions, when they do rise on us, rather indicate the power of his genius than the habit of his mind. Our gentle Spenser was often satisfied with rivalling without surpassing his originals, which Milton and Gray ever did when they copied. It seems, therefore, unreasonable to assert, that Spenser has com sonata? He who will not suffer birds to be "joyous," nor "the shade cheerful," which their notes make so. "Th' angelical soft trembling voices made. To th' instruments divine respondence meet," the "softness trembling" with the verse; had our critic forgotten Strada's famed contest of the Nightingale with the Lyre of the poet, when, her "trembling voice" overcome in the rivalry, she fell on the strings to die! And what shall we think of the classical critic who has pronounced that "the descriptions of Spenser are coldly elaborate" - the most vivid and splendid of our poetry? * But the most curious part remains to be told. This fine stanza of Spenser is one of his free borrowings, being a translation of a stanza in Tasso, excepting the introduction of "the silver-sounding instruments." The Æolian Harp played on by the musical winds was a happiness reserved for Thompson. The felicitous copy of Spenser attracted Fairfax, who, when he came to the passage in Tasso, kept his eye on Spenser, and has carefully retained "the joyous birds" for the "vezzosi augelli" of the original. It is certain that, without poetic sensibility, the most learned critic will ever find that the utmost force of his logic in these matters will not lead to reason, but to unreason. Imagination only can decide on imagination. * Gerusalemme Liberata, canto xvi,. st. 12. bined the daring sternness of Dante with the wild fantasy of Goethe. Yet their lofty creations have not gone beyond those of Spenser's personifications of Despair of Fear- of Confusion-of Astonishment - of laborious Care, that workman in his smithy, living amid the unceasing strokes of his perpetual hammers—or of Jealousy, from a mortal man metamorphosed with Ovidean fancy his single eye, for he had long worn out the other, never could be closed; no slumber could press down those restless lids; tenant of a cavern, listening day and night to the roaring billows incessantly beating his abode, threatening with its huge ruins to fall on the wretch wasting in self-torments, till, nothing left of him, he vanished into a flitting aëry sprite "Forgot he was a Man, and JEALOUSY is hight."* There are two sublime descriptions of Night which may be read together. In the one she is the "Sister of heavie Death, and nurse of woes!"` and elsewhere she appears as "That most ancient Grandmother of all, NIGHT befriending Deceit and Shame, takes one of their daughters, the witch Duessa, in her "pitchy mantle;" yoking her coal-black steeds to her iron wagon, they penetrate to the inferior regions, bearing a mortal caitiff to be restored to this wicked life-"the messenger of death" passing over the earth, the screeching owl, the baying dogs, the howling wolf, warn of the witch's presence; and in hell, the trembling ghosts. stand "Chattering with iron teeth, and staring wide With stonie eyes and flocked on every side, To gaze on EARTHLY WIGHT that with the NIGHT durst ride."† * The Faery Queen, book III., canto x. †The Faery Queen, B. III., canto iv., st. 65, and B. 1., canto v., st. 20. |
