writ with the greateft ftrength and delicacy, may give the reader an idea, more than any thing I can fay, of the perfection to which this kind of writing is capable of being raised. We have likewife, in the fecond volume of the Guardian, a very good example, given us by the fame hand, of an Allegory in the particular manner of Spenfer. HUGHES.

MR. HUGHES'S

REMARKS

ON THE FAERIE QUEENE.

BY what has been offered in the foregoing Dif course on Allegorical Poetry, we may be able not only to discover many beauties in the Faerie Queene, but likewife to excufe fome of its irregularities. The chief merit of this Poem confifts in that furprifing vein of fabulous invention which runs through it, and enriches it every where with imagery and defcriptions more than we meet with in any other modern poem. The Author feems to be poffeffed of a kind of poetical magick; and the figures he calls up to our view rife fo thick upon us, that we are at once pleafed and diftracted by the exhaustless variety of them, fo that his faults may, in a manner, be imputed to his excellencies: his abundance betrays him into excefs, and his judgement is overborne by the torrent of his imagination.

That which feems the moft liable to exception in this Work is the model of it, and the choice the Author has made of fo romantick a ftory. The feveral Books appear rather like fo many feveral poems than one entire fable: each of them has its peculiar Knight, and is independent of the reft;

and though fome of the perfons make their appearance in different Books, yet this has very little effect in connecting them. Prince Arthur is, indeed, the principal perfon, and has therefore a fhare given him in every Legend; but his part is not confiderable enough in any one of them: he appears and vanishes again like a fpirit; and we lofe fight of him too foon to confider him as the hero of the Poem.

These are the moft obvious defects in the Fable of the Faerie Queene. The want of unity in the ftory makes it difficult for the reader to carry it in his mind, and diftracts too much his attention to the feveral parts of it; and indeed the whole frame of it would appear monftrous, if it were to be examined by the rules of epick poetry, as they have been drawn from the practice of Homer and Virgil: but as it is plain the Author never defigned it by thofe rules, I think it ought rather to be confidered as a poem of a particular kind, defcribing, in a series of Allegorical adventures or epifodes, the moft noted virtues and vices. To compare it, therefore, with the models of Antiquity, would be like drawing a parallel between the Roman and the Gothick architecture. In the firft there is, doubtless, a more natural grandeur and fimplicity; in the latter we find great mixtures of beauty and barbarism, yet affifted by the invention of a variety of inferiour ornaments; and, though the former is more majeftick in the whole, the latter may be very furprifing and agreeable in its parts.

It may feem strange, indeed, fince Spenfer appears to have been well acquainted with the beft writers of Antiquity, that he has not imitated them in the

h as a poem of a particular kind, &c.] Dr. Hurd has judiciously criticised it under the idea of a Gothick, not a claffical, poem. See his REMARKS in the prefent volume. ToDD.

structure of his ftory. Two reafons may be given for this: the firft is, that, at the time when he wrote, the Italian poets, whom he has chiefly imitated, and who were the firft revivers of this art among the Moderns, were in the highest vogue, and were univerfally read and admired: but the chief reafon was, probably, that he chofe to frame his Fable after a model which might give the greatest scope to that range of fancy which was fo remarkably his talent. There is a bent in nature which is apt to determine men that particular way in which they are most capable of excelling; and, though it is certain he might have formed a better plan, it is to be questioned whether he could have executed any other fo well.

It is probably for the fame reafon that, among. the Italian poets, he rather followed Ariofto, whom he found more agreeable to his genius than Taffo, who had formed a better plan, and from whom he has only borrowed fome particular ornaments; yet it is but justice to fay, that his plan is much more regular than that of Ariofto. In the Orlando Furiofo we every where meet with an exuberant invention, joined with great livelinefs and facility of defcription, yet debafed by frequent mixtures of the comick genius, as well as many fhocking indecorums. Befides, in the huddle and diftraction of the adventures, we are for the most part only amufed with extravagant ftories, without being inftructed in any moral. On the other hand, Spenfer's Fable, though often wild, is, as I have obferved, always emblematical; and this may very much excufe likewife that air of romance in which he has followed the Italian author. The perpetual ftories of knights, giants, castles, and enchantments, and all that train of legendary adventures, would indeed appear very trifling, if Spenfer had not found a way to turn them all into Allegory, or if a lefs mafterly hand had filled

Sir

up his draught; but it is furprifing to obferve how much the ftrength of the painting is fuperiour to the defign. It ought to be confidered, too, that, at the time when our Author wrote, the remains of the old Gothick chivalry were not quite abolished: it was not many years before that the famous Earl of Surry, remarkable for his wit and poetry in the reign of King Henry VIII., took a romantick journey to Florence, the place of his miftrefs's birth, and published there a challenge against all nations in defence of her beauty. Jufts and turnaments were held in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Philip Sidney tilted at one of these entertainments, which was made for the French Ambaffador, when the treaty of marriage was on foot with the Duke of Anjou and fome of our hiftorians have given us a very particular and formal account of preparations, by marking out lifts, and appointing judges, for a trial by combat, in the fame reign, which was to have decided the title to a confiderable eftate, and in which the whole ceremony was perfectly agreeable to the fabulous defcriptions in books of Knighterrantry. This might render his story more familiar to his first readers; though knights in armour, and ladies-errant, are as antiquated figures to us, as the court of that time would appear, if we could fee them now in their ruffs and fardingales.

There are two other objections to the plan of the Faerie Queene which, I confefs, I am more at a lofs to anfwer. I need not, I think, be fcrupulous in mentioning freely the defects of a Poem which, though it was never fuppofed to be perfect, has always been allowed to be admirable.

The firft is, that the fcene is laid in Fairy Land, and the chief actors are Fairies. The reader may fee their imaginary race and history in Book II. at the end of Canto X.; but, if he is not prepared be

forehand, he may expect to find them acting agreeably to the common ftories and traditions about fuch fancied beings. Thus Shakspeare, who has introduced them in his Midfummer-Night's Dream, has made them fpeak and act in a manner perfectly adapted to their fuppofed characters; but the Fairies in this Poem are not diftinguished from other perfons. There is this misfortune, likewife, attends the choice of fuch actors, that, having been accustomed to conceive of them in a diminutive way, we find it difficult to raise our ideas, and to imagine a Fairy encountering with a monfter or a giant. Homer has purfued a contrary method, and reprefented his heroes above the fize and strength of ordinary men; and it is certain that the actions of the Iliad would. have appeared but ill proportioned to the characters, if we were to have imagined them all performed by pigmies.

But, as the actors our Author has chofen are only fancied beings, he might poffibly think himself at liberty to give them what ftature, cuftoms, and manners, he pleased. I will not fay he was in the right in this but it is plain that by the literal fenfe of Fairy Land he only defigned an Utopia, an imaginary place; and by his Fairies, perfons of whom he might invent any action proper to humankind, without being reftrained, as he must have been if he had chofen a real fcene and hiftorical characters. As for the myftical fenfe, it appears both by the Work itself, and by the Author's explanation of it*, that his Fairy Land is England, and his Fairy Queen queen Elizabeth, at whofe command the

having been accustomed to conceive of them in a diminutive way, Mr. Warton has shown, in his differtation on Spenfer's, Imitations from old Romances, that "littleness is not always implied in Fairy," TODD.

Vid. Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh. HUGHES.