what we have felt most. Spenser's whole life seems to have consisted of disappointments and distress. These miseries, the warmth of his imagination, and, what was its consequence, his sensibility of temper, contributed to render doubly severe. Unmerited and unpitied indigence ever struggles hardest with true genius; and a refined taste, for the same reasons that it en_ hances the pleasures of life, adds uncommon torture to the anxieties of that state, “in which," says an incomparable moralist,

Every virtue is obscured, and in which no conduct can avoid reproach; a state in which cheerfulness is insensibility, and dejection sullenness; of which the hardships are without honour, and the labours without reward."

To these may be added his personage Fear.

Next him was Fear all arm'd from top to toe,
Yet thought himselfe not safe enough thereby ;
But fear'd each shadow moving to and fro;
And his owne armes when glittering he did spy,

Or clashing heard, he fast away did fly,
As ashes pale of hew, and wingy-heel'd ;
And evermore on Danger fix'd his eye,

'Gainst whom he alwaies bent a brazen shield, Which his right hand unarmed fearfully did wield.

3. 12. 12.

Again,

When Scudamour those heavy tydings heard
His hart was thrild with point of deadly feare,
Ne in his face, or blood or life appear'd,
But senselesse stood, like to amazed steare
That yet of mortal stroke the stound doth beare.
4. 6. 37.

A priest of Isis, after having heard the dream of Britomart.

Like to a weake faint-harted man he fared,
Through great astonishment of that strange sight;
And with long locks upstanding stiffly stared,
Like one adawed with some dreadfull spright.

5.7.20.

Other instances of this sort might be cited; but these are the most striking.

It is proper to remark, in this place, that

Spenser has given three large descriptions, much of the same nature, yiz. The Bower of Bliss, 2. 12. The Gardens of Adonis, 3. 5. And the Gardens of the Temple of Venus, 4, 10. All which, though in general the same, his invention has diversified with many new circumstances; as it has likewise his Mornings and perhaps we meet with no poet who has more frequently, or more minutely at the same time, delineated the Morning than Spenser. He has introduced. two historical genealogies of future kings and princes of England, 3. 3. and 2. 10, Besides two or three other shorter sketches of English history. He often repeatedly introduces his allegorical figures, which he sometimes describes with very little variation from his first representation; particularly, Disdain, Fear, Envy, and Danger. In this poem we likewise meet with two hells, 1.5. 31. and 2. 7. 21.

It may not be foreign to the purpose of this section, to lay before the reader some uncommon words and expressions, of which Spenser, by his frequent use, seems particularly fond.

B. ii. c. v. s. xxxii.

That round about him dissolute did play
Their wanton follies, and light merriment.

Spenser often uses the verb play, in this sense, with an accusative case,

Their wanton sports, and childish mirth did play.

Then do the salvage beasts begin to play

1. 12. 7.

Their pleasant friskes.

4. 10. 46.

But like to angels playing heavenly toyes.

4. 10. 42.

There, with thy daughter Pleasure, they do play
Their hurtless sports.

To these we may add,

Did sport

Their spotlesse pleasure, and sweet love's content.

4. 10. 26.

We find play used after this manner in

Milton.

For nature here

Wanton'd as in her prime, and play'd at will
Her virgin fancies *.

Play is not at present used arbitrarily with any accusative case. But perhaps

have refined in some of these instances.

* Par. Lost. v. v. 295.