had wanted subjects and materials; but the translations from the Italian authors, fupplied the place which had formerly been occupied by legends and chronicles. The old hiftorical fongs of the minstrels contained, indeed, much bold adventure, heroic enterprise, and strong touches of rude delineation; but they were defective in that multiplication and difpofition of circumftances, and in that de fcription of characters and events, approaching nearer to truth and reality, which a more curious and difcerning age began to demand. By this fort of reading, the rugged features of the original Gothic romance were foftened and the Italian paftoral, with fome mixture of the kind of incidents described in Heliodorus's Ethiopic Hiftory, was engrafted on the feudal manners in Sidney's Arcadia.

One thing which deserves to be remembered is, that the reformation had not yet difpelled every delufion, nor difinchanted all the ftrong holds of fuperftition. In the mouldering creed of tradition a few dim characters were yet apparent; nor was it indeed to be expected that the firft glimmerings of the morning of fcience fhould cause every goblin of ignorance to vanish. Reafon permitted a few demons still to linger, which the chose to retain in her service under the direction of poetry. It was still the belief of men, or at leaft they were willing to believe, that fpirits were hovering around, who brought with them

Airs from heaven or blafts from hell;" that the ghost was duly released from his prison of torment at the found of the corfue; and that fairies imprinted myfterious circles on the turf by moonlight. Even the pretenders to science and profound fpeculation continued to be infected with much of this credulity. Most of these fabulous notions had undoubtedly been credited and entertained, in a far higher degree, in the preceding periods. But the poets of those times were too little fkilled in the arts of compofition, to manage the fictions of the age with proper address and judgment. In Elizabeth's reign we were arrived at that point, when the national credulity, chaftened by reafon, had produced a kind of civilifed fuperftition, and left a fet of traditions, which were fufficient for poetic decoration,

tion, and yet not too violent and chimerical for common fense. Even the scientific Hobbes gave his fanction to an extravagance of fancy in the productions of poetry.

Although the Gothic romance had been fomewhat fhaken by the claffical fictions, and the tales of Boccace and Bandello, it ftill maintained its ground; and the daring machineries of giants, dragons, and enchanted caftles, borrowed from the magic ftore-houfe of Boiardo, Ariofto, and Taffo, began to be employed by the epic mufe. Servile critics have cenfured thefe ornaments, as abounding in whimfical abfurdities, and as unwarrantable deviations from the practice of Homet and Virgil. Homer and Virgil, however, are not free from abfurdities, if fuch they are to be ftyled. On the principles of the critics in question, genuine poetry, especially in the higheft fpecies of it, would be deftroyed.

From the religious dramas, allegory had been adopted into our civil fpectacles. Not only were the mafques and pageantries of the age of Elizabeth furnished with heathen divinities, but the virtues and vices were imperfonated, fignificantly decorated, accurately diftinguished by their proper types, and reprefented by living actors. The ancient fymbolical fhews of this fort began to affume a degree of poetical elegance and precifion; and it was not, merely in the conformation of particular figures that much fancy was fhewn, but in the contexture of fome of the fables or devices prefented by groupes of ideal perfonages. Creative invention was quickened by thefe exhibitions, which reflected back upon poetry, what poetry had given. In confequence of their familiarity and public nature, a national tafte for allegory was formed; fo that the allegorical poets now wrote to the understanding and feelings of the people. Even romance was turned to this channel; and in the Fairy Queen, allegory is built upon chivalry.

It added to the freedom, we may fay to the boldness, of the poetry of this period, that our writers were not hampered by the ftrictness of rules. Very few critical treatifes had been produced, and only one art of poetry. Canons of compofition had not abfolutely determined concerning fentiments and images; nor was genius awed by the 1791.

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prehenfion of a future and final arraignment at the tribunal of Tafle. Every man indulged a capricioufnefs of invention, without too closely confulting the laws of correctness. It was chiefly to his voluntary feelings, to his own immediate and peculiar mode of conception, that the poet made his appeal. With this freedom of thought there was often joined an undifguifed franknefs of expreffion; and both together contributed to produce the flowing modulation which now marked the meafures of our poets, and which, by an almoft unaccountable perverfion of tafte, degenerated in the next age into the oppofite extreme of diffonance and afperity. Selection and difcrimination had not yet marked the character of our authors, who wandered in the purfuit of univerfal nature, without hefitating at breaking the boundaries of imaginary method.

It was not till the latter end of queen Elizabeth's reign, that fatires, properly fo called, were produced, and these were very few in number. Readers who loved to range in the regions of artificial manners and narratives were not attached to pictures at large of the vices of the times. The poetry of this period was too folemn and referved to stoop to common life. Satire is never carried to perfection, or univerfally admired, excepting in an age that is highly polithed.

As the importance of the female character was not commonly acknowledged, nor woman admitted into the general commerce of fociety, the intercourfe of fexes had not imparted a comic air to poetry, or foftened the feverer tone of our verfification, with the levities of gallantry, and the familiarities of compliment. The abfence of fo material a circumftance must have influenced the contemporary poetical compofitions. Many traces remain of what was in this refpect the ftate of manners among our ancestors. Women, we fee, ufually make but a final figure in the tragedies and comedies of Shakelpeare. However neceffary the heroines may, on the whole, be to the piece, they are commonly degraded to the back-ground. As to the ladies in comedy, they are nothing more than "merry wives,” plain and chearful matrons. If, in the finaller poems, a lover praises

praifes his mistrefs, fhe is complimented, without elegance and without affection, in ftrains that are neither polite nor pathetic. She is defcribed not in the real colours, and with the genuine accomplishments of nature, but as an eccentric being, that infpired fentiments equally umeaning, hyperbolical, and unnatural.

All, or most of the circumftances we have mentioned, contributed to give a defcriptive, a picturefque, and figurative caft to the poetical language of our country; and even the profe compofitions of Elizabeth's reign took a tincture from the fame caufes. In the mean while, general knowledge was widely and rapidly increafing. Books began to be multiplied, and many useful and rational topics had been difcuffed in our own tongue. Science, at the fame time, had not made fuch great advances as to damp the fpirit of invention. On the whole, we were now arrived at a period that was eminently propitious to original and true poetry. It was a period in which genius was rather directed than governed by judgment; and in which tafte and learning had fo far only difciplined imagination, as to fuffer its exceffes to pafs without cenfure or controul, for the fake of the beauties to which they were allied.

At a time when the objects pointed out by us were cal'culated to have fuch a powerful operation upon the nature and character of our poetry, a genius arofe of the first order, who was animated with a full portion of the fpirit of the age, and capable of painting it in all its energy. We need not fay that this genius was Spenfer, and that we refer to the Fairy Queen. Perhaps it might have been expected, from the revival and study of the ancient poets and critics, that instead of the romantic manner of compofition which had formerly prevailed, a new, and what is commonly esteemed, a more legitimate tafte of writing would have fucceeded. But it was very flowly that fuch a change was effected; nor was any confiderable improvement made in the state of criticifin till a long time after the restoration of ancient learning. It was not to Homer, or Virgil, or even to Taffo, that Spenfer looked up to for a model; but to Ariofto: and it was confequently his intention to produce

a poem which should confift of allegories, enchantments, and romantic expeditions, conducted by knights, giants, magi cians, and fictitious beings. If he was blamable in this refpect, the fault is not fo much to be imputed to himself as to the times in which he lived. It was natural for him to follow the mode of compofition which then was most admired, and to adopt thofe laws of tafte, which Italian critics had approved for Italy, not France, was in queen Elizabeth's reign the arbiter of elegance; and in Italy Ariofto was greatly preferred to Taffo. Whether this opinion was juft or not, we are not here called upon to determine. It is fufficient to our purpose to obferve, that it was embraced by Spenfer; and that upon this principle, the plan of his poem, which is as follows, was framed.

It is fuppofed by the poet, that the FAERY QUEENE, according to an annual cuftom, held a magnificent feast, that continued twelve days, in the courfe of which twelve feveral complaints are prefented before her. In order, therefore, to redrefs the injuries which occafioned these complaints, she dispatches, with proper commiffions, twelve knights, each of whom, in the adventure allotted to him, proves an example of fome particular virtue; and has one complete book affigned to him, of which he is the hero. Befides thefe twelve knights, feverally exemplifying twelve moral virtues, Spenfer has conftituted one principal knight or general hero, viz. PRINCE ARTHUR, who reprefents Magnificence; a virtue which is fupposed to be the perfection of all the reft. ARTHUR affifts in every book, and the end of his actions is to difcover, and win GLORIANA, or Glory. The character, in short, which the poet profeffes to pourtray, is "the image of a brave knight perfected in the twelve private moral virtues."

In establishing one hero, who fhould exemplify the grand character which the author had in view, he evidently copied the caft and conftruction of the ancient epic. But while he was fenfible of the importance of maintaining the unity of the hero and of his defign, he was not fufficiently convinced of the neceffity of preferving that unity of action, without which the former could not be properly accom-.

plished.