66

Till morrow next, that I the Elfe fubdew, And with Sansfoyes dead dowry you endew.” Ay me, that is a double death," she said, "With proud foes fight my forrow to renew: Where ever yet I be, my fecret aide

Shall follow you." So, paffing forth, she him obaid.

LI. 5.

endew.] For endow; the rhyme requiring endew, as Mr. Upton obferves. In other places the poet ufes endew for clothe, inveft. See F. Q. iii. viii. 40, v. iii. 20. The word before us may vindicate the tranflation of the Bible from a fuppofed mifprint with which Dr. Johnson charges it. See Gen. xxx. 20. "And Leah faid, God hath endued me with a good dowry." TODD.

VOL. II.

CANTO V.

The faithfull Knight in equall field
Subdewes his faithleffe foe;

Whom falfe Dueffa faves, and for
His cure to hell does goe.

I.

THE noble hart that harbours vertuous thought,

And is with childe of glorious great intent, Can never reft, untill it forth have brought Th' eternall brood of glorie excellent. Such restleffe paffion did all night torment The flaming corage of that Faery Knight, Devizing, how that doughtie turnament With greatest honour he atchieven might: Still did he wake, and still did watch for dawning light.

II.

At laft, the golden orientall gate

I. 2. And is with childe of glorious great intent,] This is expreffed after Plato's manner; in allufion to the innate and intellectual powers in the foul, full of entity and of substantial forms; which by proper institution knows how to unfold itself, and, as it were, conceives, and brings forth out of its intellectual womb. Spenfer feems particularly to have the following paflage in view, ΚΥΟΥΣΙ πάντες ἄνθρωποι, καὶ κατὰ τὸ σῶμα καὶ κατὰ τὴν ψυχὴν, καὶ ἐπειδὰν ἐν τινὶ ἡλικίᾳ γένωνται ΤΙΚΤΕΙΝ ἐπιθυμεῖ ἡμῶν . Plat. in Sympof. p. 206. UPTON.

II. 1. At last, the golden orientall gate &c.] Spenfer, as Dr. Jortin obferves, here plainly alludes to Pfal. xix. 5. “In them

Of greatest heaven gan to open fayre;

And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate,

Came dauncing forth, fhaking his deawie hayre;

And hurld his gliftring beams through gloomy

ayre.

Which when the wakeful Elfe perceiv'd, ftreight

way

He ftarted up, and did him felfe prepayre In funbright armes, and battailous array; For with that Pagan proud he combatt will that day.

hath he fet a tabernacle for the fun; which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his courfe." But our author has ftrangely inverted the circumstances. The Pfalmift alludes to the Jewish custom of the bridegroom being conducted from his chamber at midnight, with folemn pomp, and preceded by a numerous train of torches. This is the illuftration of the admirable Dr. Jackson, a theologist in the reign of James I: and without it the comparison is of no force or propriety. T. WARTON.

II. 5. And hurld his gliftring beams through gloomy ayre.] He fays hurld, because the beams of the fun are his darts, which he hurls; or arrowes which he shoots forth: So Prudentius, II. Hymn.

"Caligo terræ fcinditur

"Percuffa Solis fpiculo." UPTON.

II. 8. In funbright armes,] The epithet fun-bright is certainly, as Mr. Upton has observed, a very happy one. But I doubt whether Spenfer may be pronounced the original framer of it. In Greene's Arcadia, 1589, it is thus employed: "Sunnebright Venus." Fairfax, Milton, and Henry More, all ardent admirers of Spenfer, have adopted this compound. Davies alfo in his Scourge of Folly, 1611. p. 44, has "his fun-bright glory." TODD.

III.

And forth he comes into the commune hall; Where earely waite him many a gazing eye, To weet what end to ftraunger Knights may

fall.

There many

minftrales maken melody, To drive away the dull melancholy; And many bardes, that to the trembling

chord

Can tune their timely voices cunningly;
And many chroniclers, that can record

III. 4. many minftrales &c.] Spenfer has here intermixed the minstrels with the bards. The minstrels, fays Dr. Percy, feem to have been the genuine fucceffors of the ancient bards, who under different names were admired and revered, from the earliest ages, among the people of Gaul, Britain, Ireland, and the North. See Eff. on the Anc. Minftrels in Reliques of Anc. Poetry, vol. 1. p. xxii. 4th edit. The chroniclers here mentioned, may be alfo understood as rhymers. For thus Spenfer, in his View of the State of Ireland: "I do herein rely upon thefe bards or Irish chroniclers." This ftanza prefents us with a picture of the stately gaiety of the feudal times, and of the ancient establishments in the houses of our gentry. TODD.

III. 5.

the dull melancholy;] Melancholy is here accented on the second syllable. And thus Hall, in his Virgidemiarum, 1597. Lib. 4. p. 29.

"Touch not this coler, that melancholy,

"This bit were dry and hote, that cold and dry." And fee Jonfon's Sad Shepherd, A. ii. S. vii. TODD.

III. 7. Can tune their timely voices cunningly ;] Can tune, i. e. did tune; or knew how to tune; timely, according to proper time and measure; cunningly, as artists. Let the reader here obferve the difpofition, and order of things; the proceffion, the ratification of the oath, the combat, the breaking off of the combat by fupernatural interpofition: then the fcene changes to the infernal regions, where Dueffa goes for the cure of the wounded Sarazin. UPTON.

Old loves, and warres for Ladies doen by many

a Lord.

IV.

Soone after comes the cruell Sarazin,
In woven maile all armed warily;
And sternly lookes at him, who not a pin
Does care for looke of living creatures eye.
They bring them wines of Greece and Araby,

IV. 2. In woven maile] Virgil, Æn. iii. 467. "Loricam confertam hamis." Maile, Fr. maille, Ital. maglia, properly the mesh of a net, as Mr. Upton has obferved, is applied to a coat of armour compacted with hooks and rings of iron with little meshes; and thus "linked mayles,” F. Q. iii. v. 19. An entire fpecimen of this kind of armour exists on the monument of the Black Prince in Canterbury cathedral; whose figure is completely armed, except the head, on which is a fcull-cap with a coronet round it, whence depends a hood of network mail down to his breaft and fhoulders, TODD.

IV. 5. They bring them wines of Greece and Araby,

And daintie Spices fetch from furtheft Ynd, &c.] Spenfer mentions Spiced wines, as agreeable to the eastern manners: "I would caufe thee to drink of Spiced wine." Sal. Song, viii. 2. The ratification of the oath by wine is agreeable to the custom mentioned in Homer, Il. y', v. 270, 295. And this whole ceremony is according to the laws of arms, and established cuftoms, in romance writers; viz. the proceffion; the champ clos, [the paled greene,] or lifts; the royal canopy for the queen; the fhield hanged up for the conqueror, and Dueffa in open view, the conqueror's meed likewife. See Du Cange in Duello. And firft they fwear to obferve the facred law of arms: This oath, the reader may fee in Spelman, Gloff. v. Campus. and Wachter, Gloff. Germ. v. Acht. Shakspeare, in the combat of Bolingbroke and Mowbray, mentions this oath :

"Marshall, demand of yonder champion
"The caufe of his arrival here in arms;
"Afk him his name, and orderly proceed

"To fwear him in the justice of his caufe." UPTON. See more concerning the wines &c. here mentioned, in the note on Spicery and Spiced wines, F. Q. iii. i. 42. TODD.