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MR. HUGHES'S

ESSAY

ON

ALLEGORICAL POETRY.

IT is a misfortune, as Mr. Waller observes, which attends the writers of English poetry, that they can hardly expect their works fhould laft long in a tongue which is daily changing; that, whilft they are new, envy is apt to prevail against them; and, as that wears off, our language itself fails. Our poets, therefore, he says, fhould imitate judicious ftatuaries, that choose the most durable materials; and should carve in Latin or Greek, if they would have their labours preferved for ever.

Notwithstanding the difadvantage he has mentioned, we have two ancient English poets, Chaucer and Spenfer, who may, perhaps, be reckoned as exceptions to this remark: These feem to have taken deep root, like old British oaks, and to flourish in defiance of all the injuries of time and weather. The former is, indeed, much more obfolete in his style than the latter; but it is owing to an extraordinary native strength in both that they have been able thus far to furvive amidft the changes of our tongue, and feem rather likely, among the curious at least, to preferve the knowledge of our ancient language, than to be in danger of being destroyed with it, and buried under its ruins.

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Though Spenfer's affection to his master Chaucer led him in many things to copy after him, yet thofe who have read both will eafily observe that these two geniuses were of a very different kind. Chaucer excelled in his characters, Spenfer in his defcriptions. The first studied humour, was an excellent fatirift, and a lively but rough painter of the manners of that rude age in which he lived: the latter was of the ferious turn, had an exalted and elegant mind, a warm and boundless fancy, and was an admirable imager of virtues and vices, which was his particular talent. The embellifhments of defcription are rich and lavish in him beyond comparifon; and as this is the most striking part of poetry, especially to young readers, I take it to be the reafon that he has been the father of more poets among us than any other of our writers; poetry being firft kindled in the imagination, which Spenfer writes to more than any one, and the feason of youth being the most susceptible of the impreffion. It will not feem ftrange, therefore, that Cowley, as himself tells us, firft caught his flame by reading Spenfer; that our great Milton owned him for his original, as Mr. Dryden affures us; and that Dryden ftudied him, and has bestowed more frequent commendations on him than on any other English poet.

The moft known and celebrated of his Works, though I will not say the most perfect, is the Faerie Queene: it is conceived, wrought up, and coloured with a stronger fancy, and difcovers more the particular genius of Spenfer than any of his other writings. The Author, in a Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, having called this poem a continued allegory, or dark conceit, it may not be improper to offer fome Remarks on Allegorical Poetry in general, by which the beauties of this Work may more eafily be difcovered by ordinary readers. I muft, at the

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fame time, beg the indulgence of those, who are converfant with critical difcourfes, to what I fhall here propofe; this being a fubject something out of the way, and not exprefsly treated upon by those who have laid down rules for the art of poetry.

An Allegory is a fable or ftory in which, under imaginary perfons or things, is fhadowed fome real action or inftructive moral; or, as I think it is fomewhere very shortly defined by Plutarch, it is that "in which one thing is related, and another thing is understood." It is a kind of poetical picture, or hieroglyphick, which, by its apt refemblance, conveys inftruction to the mind by an analogy to the fenfes, and fo amufes the fancy, whilst it informs the understanding. Every allegory has, therefore, two fenfes, the literal and the myftical: the literal fenfe is like a dream or vifion, of which the mystical fenfe is the true meaning or interpretation.

This will be more clearly apprehended by confidering, that as a fimile is but a more extended metaphor, fo an allegory is a kind of continued fimile, or an affemblage of fimilitudes drawn out at full length. Thus, when it is faid that Death is the offspring of Sin, this is a metaphor, to fignify that the former is produced by the latter, as a child is brought into the world by its parent. Again, to compare Death to a meagre and ghaftly apparition, ftarting out of the ground, moving towards the spectator with a menacing air, and shaking in his hand a bloody dart, is a representation of the terrours which attend that great enemy to human nature. But let the reader obferve, in Milton's Paradife Loft, with what exquifite fancy and skill this common metaphor and fimile, and the moral contained in them, are extended and wrought up into one of the most beautiful allegories in our language.

The resemblance which has been fo often obferved in general between poetry and painting is yet more particular in allegory, which, as I faid before, is a kind of picture in poetry. Horace has, in one of his Odes, pathetically defcribed the ruinous condition of his country after the Civil wars, and the hazard of its being involved in new diffentions, by the emblem of a fhip fhattered with storms, and driven into port with broken masts, torn fails, and difabled rigging, and in danger of being forced, by new storms, out to fea again. There is nothing faid in the whole Ode but what is literally applicable to a fhip; but it is generally agreed that the thing fignified is the Roman State. Thus Rubens, who had a good allegorical genius in painting, has, in his famous work of the Luxemburg gallery, figured the government of France, on Lewis XIII.'s arriving at age, by a galley. The King stands at the helm, Mary of Medicis, the Queen-mother and Regent, puts the rudder in his hand; Juftice, Fortitude, Religion, and Public Faith, are feated at the oars; and other Virtues have their proper employments in managing the fails and tackle.

By this general defcription of Allegory, it may eafily be conceived, that in works of this kind there is a large field open to invention, which among the Ancients was univerfally looked upon to be the principal part of poetry. The power of raifing images or resemblances of things, giving them life and action, and prefenting them as it were before the eyes, was thought to have fomething in it like creation; and it was probably for this fabling part that the first authors of fuch works were called Poets or Makers, as the word fignifies, and as it is literally tranflated and ufed by Spenfer; though the learned Gerard Voffius is of opinion that it was rather

De Arte Poetica, cap. 3. §. 16. HUGHES.

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