was to form his ideas of the turn and manner of his genius from this piece, would undoubtedly suppose that he abounded in filthy images, and excelled in defcribing the lower fcenes of life. But the characteristics of this sweet and amiable allegorical poet, are, not only ftrong and circumftantial imagery, but tender and pathetic feeling, a most melodious flow of verfification, and a certain pleafing melancholy in his fentiments, the conftant companion of an elegant tafte, that cafts a delicacy and grace over all his compofitions. To imitate Spenser on a subject that does not hold of the pathos, is not giving a true representation of him, for he feems to be more awake and alive to all the foftnesses of nature, than almost any writer I can recollect. There is an affemblage of difgufting and disagreeable founds, in the following ftanza of POPE, which one is almoft tempted to think, if it were poffible, had been contrived as a contraft, or rather burlesque, of a moft exquifite ftanza in the FAERY QUEEN.

The

The snappish cur, (the paffengers annoy)
Close at my heel with yelping treble flies;
The whimp'ring girl, and hoarser-screaming boy,
Join to the yelping treble, fhrilling cries;
The fcolding quean to louder notes doth rife,
And her full pipes thofe fhrilling cries confound;
To her full pipes the grunting hog replies;
The grunting hogs alarm the neighbours round,
And curs, girls, boys, in the deep base are drown'd.

The very turn of these numbers, have the closest resemblance with the following, which are of themselves a complete concert of the moft delicious mufic.

The joyous birds shrouded in chearful shade,
Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet;
Th' angelical, foft trembling voices made
To th' inftruments divine refpondence meet;
The filver-founding inftruments did meet
With the base murmure of the water's fall;
The water's fall with difference difcreet,
Now foft, now loud unto the wind did call ;
The gentle warbling wind low anfwered to all *.

These images, one would have thought, were peculiarly calculated to have struck the fancy

* Book II. Canto 12. Stanza 71.

of

of our young imitator with fo much admiration, as not to have fuffered him to make a kind of travefty of them.

The next stanza of POPE represents fome allegorical figures, of which his original was fo fond.

Hard by a fty, beneath a roof of thatch
Dwelt OBLOQUy, who in her early days,
Baskets of fish at Billinfgate did watch,

Cod, whiting, oyfter, mackarel, fprat or plaice:
There learn'd she speech from tongues that never cease.
SLANDER befide her, like a magpie chatters,
With ENVY (Spitting cat) dread foe to peace;
Like a curs'd cur, MALICE before her clatters,

And vexing every wight, tears cloaths and all to

tatters.

But these perfonages of Obloquy, Slander, Envy and Malice, are not marked with any distinct attributes, they are not those living figures*, whose attitudes and behaviour Spenfer

* Mr. Hume is of opinion, that the perufal of Spenfer becomes tedious to almost all his readers. "This effect, fays he, [Hiftory of England, pag. 738.] of which every one is conscious, is usually ascribed to the change of manners; but manners have more changed fince Homer's age, and yet that poet remains

has minutely drawn with fo much clearness and truth, that we behold them with our eyes, as plainly as we do on the cieling of the banquetting-houfe. For in truth the pencil of Spenfer is as powerful as that of Rubens, his brother allegorist; which two artists refembled each other in many refpects, but Spenfer had more grace, and was as warm a colourist. Among a multitude of objects delineated with the utmost force *, which we might felect

remains ftill the favourite of every reader of tafte and judgment. Homer copied true natural manners, which, however rough and uncultivated, will always form an agreeable and pleafing picture; but the pencil of the English poet was employed in drawing the affectations, and conceits, and fopperies of chivalry, which appear ridiculous as foon as they lose the recommendation of the mode."

Whence it came to pass that Spenser did not give his poem the due fimplicity, coherence and unity of a legitimate Epopea, the reader may find in Mr. Hurd's entertaining letter to Mr. Mason, on the Marks of imitation, pag. 19, and in Obfervations on the Faery Queen, pag. 2, 3, 4. "How happened it, says Mr. Hurd, that Sir Philip Sydney in his Arcadia, and afterwards Spenfer in his Faery Queen, obferved fo unnatural a conduct in those works; in which the story proceeds as it were by fnatches, and with continual interruptions? How was the good fenfe of those writers, fo converfant befides in the best models of antiquity, feduced

on this occafion, let us stop a moment and take one attentive look at the allegorical figures that rise to our view in the following lines;

By that way's fide there fate infernal Pain,
And faft befide him fat tumultuous Strife;
The one, in hand an iron whip did ftrain,
The other brandifhed a bloody knife,

And both did gnash their teeth, and both did threaten life *.

22.

But gnawing Jealoufie, out of their fight
Sitting alone his bitter lips did bite;

this prepofterous method? The answer, no doubt is, that they were copying the defign, or disorder rather of Ariofto, the favourite poet of that time."

A defence of Ariofto was lately published in Lettere Familiari e Critiche de Vincenzo Martinelli, two of which are addreffed to lord Charlemont on this fubject, pag. 290. Something curious on this head may be found in a remarkable letter of Bernardo Taffo, the father of Torquato, in which there is this paffage. "Ne fò io s' Ariftotele nafceffe a questa età, et vedeffe il vaghiffimo poema dell'Ariofto, conoscendo la forza de l' ufo, et vedendo che tanto diletta, come l'esperienza ci dimonftra, mutaffe opinione, et confentiffe che fi poteffe far poema heroico di piu attione: Con la fua mirabil dottrina, et giudicio, dandogli nova norma, et prefcrivuendogli novi leggi."

-Lettere di XIII. Huomini Illuftri da Tomaso Porcacchi.
In Venetia, 1584. Libro XVII. pag. 422.

Vol. II.

* Book II. c. 7. 21.

Ο

And