And yet observe the description of the guardian angel sent to Guyon :

Like as Cupido on Idæan hill,

When having laid his cruell bow away

And mortall arrowes, wherewith he doth fill

The world with murderous spoiles and bloody prey,
With his faire mother he him dights to play,
And with his goodly sisters, Graces three;
The Goddesse, pleased with his wanton play,
Suffers herself through sleepe beguild to bee,
The whiles the other ladies mind theyr mery glee.

If Spenser were to be regarded, in the first place, as a moral and religious teacher, this description would be a mistake; for who could believe in the reality of such an angel? But, on the other hand, who, having regard to Spenser's style, could wish anything to be altered? Poetry can never take the place of religion. But it can soothe and elevate the mind, as nothing else in the world can do, by depicting the idea of beauty, whether it be derived from the doctrines of Dionysius the Areopagite, or from a painting of Titian. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;" and that is the secret of the enduring life of the Faery Queen.

CHAPTER X

THE GROWTH OF CRITICISM AND ITS EFFECT ON
POETRY: THE POETICAL EUPHUISTS

I HAVE said that the Miscellanies which appeared from time to time during the latter half of the sixteenth century furnish a series of landmarks by which we may accurately measure the advance of the national taste. The earlier of these collections-Tottel's Miscellany, The Paradise of Dainty Devices, The Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions -show the gradual stages through which the language passed after it had received its first refinement from the hands of Surrey, up to the point at which poets like Gascoigne and Churchyard began to anticipate the movement of Lyly. During the whole of that period the chief aim of the poets was purity of idiom and smoothness and harmony in versification. But in the Miscellanies published towards the close of Elizabeth's reign-The Phonix Nest, England's Helicon, England's Parnassus, and The Poetical Rhapsody-it is evident that style is being affected by influences of a more complex and artificial kind.

The Phonix Nest, published in 1593, is described as being "set forth by R. S. of the Inner Temple, Gent.," and contains a number of compositions signed with initials, such as T. W. (Thomas Watson), N. B. (Nicholas Breton), T. L. (Thomas Lodge), of the nature of sonnets, elegies, epigrams, etc., all indicating a tendency to make metrical experiments in thought and language, sometimes in rhyming stanzas, sometimes in measures determined by the classical principle of quantity. England's Helicon, on the

contrary, which appeared in 1600, under the editorship of John Bodenham, is almost entirely filled with poems written in the pastoral vein. England's Parnassus, edited, in the same year, by R. A., is an Anthology, selected from the works of all English poets from the time of Surrey. The Poetical Rhapsody, a collection made by Francis, son of William Davidson, Secretary of State, was published in 1602, and is chiefly made up of contributions from men occupying high positions at Court, such as Sidney, Dyer, Raleigh, and Wotton.

In all these Miscellanies we see clearly that the writers are no longer content with the harmonious simplicity of Surrey's diction, which had been the accepted standard for poets of Turbervile's generation. They aim at curious and novel effects of language. The editors have definite ideas of what is to be admired in poetry; they let us see whom they think the admirable poets of the age. The age itself, in short, is becoming critical as well as poetical, and, in order to understand the aims and motives of its poets, we ought to read the Miscellanies in connection with the various critical treatises which, beginning to appear about the middle of the century, show how much the minds of men were occupied with the difficulties of composing in a newly-formed language, and to what an extent their imaginations were overpowered by the technical excellences of classical and Italian literature.

The first critical treatise in English is Sir Thomas Wilson's Art of Rhetoric, published in 1553. The instruction given in this work is in no way original, but it is judicious, and sometimes humorous; as, however, it does not discuss the art of poetry, it requires no detailed notice. In 1575, George Gascoigne, at the request, as he tells us, of "Master Edward Donati," published his Notes of Instruction concerning the making of Verse, describing the practice of metrical composition in his time. Several of his observations are interesting. He points out, with some regret, that no foot is now recognised in England but the iambus.1

1 Haslewood's Ancient Critical Essays, vol. ii. p. 6. It is to be remembered, however, that Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry VOL. II

U

So entirely had the principle of Chaucer's versification been lost that Gascoigne describes it as "riding rhyme" (i.e. verse not measured by the regular beat of the iambus), and thinks that it is determined solely by the accent. He recommends the use of monosyllables in view of the character of the language; and-what is of great importance-notes the use of the cæsura, and the different places in which it falls in verses of various length.

Gascoigne made no suggestions of reform in his Notes; but, a few years later, we find, from the correspondence between Spenser and Gabriel Harvey, that a deliberate attempt is being made to base the standard of English metres on quantity instead of on accent and rhyme. This movement is encouraged by Sidney and Dyer, who are at the head of a literary party at Court, and rules of prosody have been actually laid down by one Drant (Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge), a scholar patronised by these courtiers. Spenser himself has made some experiments in the new style, and sends Harvey his remarks on the result:

I like your late English hexameters so exceedingly well that I also enure my pen something in that kind, which I find, indeed, as I have heard you so often defend in word, neither so hard nor so harsh but that it will easily and fairly yield itself to our mother tongue. For the only or chiefest hardness which seemeth is in the accent, which sometimes gapeth, and, as it were, yawneth, ill-favouredly, coming short of that it should, and sometimes exceeding the measure of the number, as in carpenter, the middle syllable being used short in speech, when it shall be read long in verse, seemeth like a lame gosling that draweth one leg after her; and Heaven being used short as one syllable, when it is in verse stretched out with a diastole, like a lame dog that holds up one leg. But it is to be won with custom, and rough words must be subdued with use. For why a God's name may not we, as well as the Greeks, have the kingdom of our own language, and measure our accents by the sound, reserving the quantity to the verse?1

To this Harvey, who would seldom agree with the was composed in an anapæstic rhythm, and that an irregular movement of the same kind was employed in the Moralities.

1 Gabriel Harvey's Works (Grosart), vol. i. p. 35.

ideas of any other man, sent a letter of reply, written in his usual conceited style; in the course of which he said :—

But ho! I pray you, gentle sirra, a word with you more. In good sooth, and by the faith I bear to the Muses, you shall never have my subscription or consent (though you should charge me with the authority of five hundred Master Drants) to make your carpenter our carpenter an inch longer or bigger than God and his English people have made him. Is there no other policy to pull down rhyming and set up versifying, but must needs correct Magnificat, and against all order of law, and, in despite of custom, forcibly usurp and tyrannise upon a quiet company of words that, so far beyond the memory of man, have so peaceably enjoyed their several privileges and liberties without any disturbance or the least controlment.1

With a faint suspicion, apparently, that this line of argument gave away the whole principle of reform he was himself advocating, he added:

Nevertheless I grant, after long advice and diligent observation of particulars, a certain uniform analogy and concordance being in process of time espied out.2

Some years later Thomas Campion, the author of a short treatise called Observations on the Art of English Poesy (1602), reversed this decision by insisting on the necessity of observing strictly the classical rule of quantity. "Neither," says he, "can I remember any impediment, except position, that can alter the accent of any syllable in our English verse. For though we accent the second syllable of Trumpington short, yet it is naturally long, and so of necessity must be held of every composer." 3

William Webbe was a labourer in the same cause as Harvey, Sidney, and Drant. His Discourse of English Poetry was published in 1586. In it he urges, like Spenser, that the character and standard of the language could be determined by the will of those who wrote in it :

Likewise, for the tenor of the verse might we not (as Horace did in the Latin) alter their proportions to what sorts we listed, 1 Gabriel Harvey's Works, vol. p. 99. 2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 105. 3 Haslewood's Ancient Critical Essays, vol. ii. p. 186.