led him to change his mind was, partly, as I fuppofe, his growing fondness for religious fubjects; partly, his ambition to take a different rout from SPENSER; but chiefly perhaps, the difcredit into which the stories of Chivalry had now fallen by the immortal fatire of CERVANTES. Yet we fee through all his poetry, where his enthufiafm flames out moft, a certain predilection for the legends of Chivalry before the fables of Greece.

THIS circumftance, you know, has given offence to the aufterer and more mechanical critics. They are ready to cenfure his judgment, as juvenile and unformed, when they fee him fo delighted, on all occafions, with the Gothic romances. But do these cenfors imagine that MILTON did not perceive the defects of these works, as well as they? No: it was not the compofition of books of Chivalry, but the manner defcribed in S 4 them,

them, that took his fancy; as appears from his Allegro

Towred cities please us then
And the bufy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.

AND when in the Penferofo he draws, by a fine contrivance, the fame kind of image to footh melancholy which he had before given to excite mirth, he indeed extols an author, or two, of these romances, as he had before, in general, extolled the fubject of them: but they are authors worthy of his praise; not the writers of Amadis, and Sir Launcelot of the Lake; but Fairy SPENSER, and CHAUCER himself, who has left an unfinished story on the Gothic or feudal model.

Or2

Or, call up him that left half-told
The ftory of CAMBUSCAN bold,
Of CAMBALL and of ALGARSIFE,
And who had CANACE to wife,
That own'd the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horfe of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And if aught elfe great bards befide
In fage and folemn tunes have fung
Of turneys and of trophies hung
Of forefts and inchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.

THE Conduct then of these two poets may incline us to think with more refpect, than is commonly done, of the Gothic manners; I mean, as adapted to the ufes of the greater poetry.

I SHALL add nothing to what I before observed of SHAKESPEAR, because the fublimity (the divinity, let it be, if nothing else will ferve) of his genius kept no certain rout, but rambled at hazard into all the regions of human

事

life and manners. So that we can hardly fay what he preferred, or what he rejected, on full deliberation. Yet one thing is clear, that even he is greater when he ufes Gothic manners and machinery, than when he employs claffical: which brings us again to the fame point, that the former have, by their nature and genius, the advantage of the latter in producing the fublime,

I

LETTER VIII.

SPOKE of criticizing SPENSER'S 66 poem, under the idea, not of a claf fical, but Gothic compofition."

Ir is certain, much light might be thrown on that fingular work, were an able critic to confider it in this view. For inftance, he might go fome way towards explaining, perhaps justifying, the general plan and conduct of the Fairy Queen, which, to claffical readers, has appeared indefenfible.

I HAVE

I HAVE taken the fancy, with your leave, to try my hand on this curious fubject,

WHEN an architect examines a Gothic ftructure by Grecian rules, he finds nothing but deformity. But the Gothic architecture has its own rules, by which when it comes to be examined, it is feen to have its merit, as well as the Grecian. The queftion is not, which of the two is conducted in the fimpleft or truest taste : but, whether there be not fenfe and defign in both, when fcrutinized by the laws on which each is projected.

THE fame obfervation holds of the two sorts of poetry. Judge of the Fairy Queen by the claffic models, and you are fhocked with its diforder: confider it with an eye to its Gothic original, and you find it regular. The unity and fimplicity of the former are more com

plete: