particular hiftorical allufion, the cruel confinement and perfecutions of the Queen of Scots by the direction chiefly of Burleigh? we fhall find likewife the hiftorical allufions defignedly perplexed, if we look for this perfecuted Queen in the perfecuted Florimel. See what I have remarked in a note on B. iii. C. 7. St. 27. where I suppose the flight of Florimel imaged from the flight of the Queen of Scots: both of them took refuge in a fisherman's boat: and one was treated as cruelly by her falfe protector Proteus, as the other by those false friends to whom he fled for protection. There are feveral of these typical and historical allufions (as I faid above) pointed out in the notes, and if the reader, with proper knowledge of the history of Queen Elizabeth's reign, delights in fuch myfterious researches, he may eafily, with these hints given, pursue them further :

ne let him then admire,

But yield his fenfe to bee too blunt and bace,
That n'ote without an bound fine footing trace.

Introd. B. ii. St. 4.

But to proceed. Whatever ideas and conceptions the poet has, whether fublime, or pathetic, or whether relative to humour, or to ordinary life and manners; these he can convey only by the medium of words. 'Tis neceffary therefore that the poet's diction and expressions should have a kind of correspondency to his ideas: and as the painter represents objects by colours, fo should the poet, by raifing images and vifions in the mind of the reader: he fhould know likewife how to charm the ear by the harmony of verse, as the musician by musical notes. Were I to allow in the last of these excellencies, namely, in the power and harmony of numbers, the preference to Homer, Virgil, and Milton; yet our poet stands unrivalled in the vifionary art of bringing objects before your eyes, and making you a fpectator of his imaginary reprefentations.

I have

I have often obferved a great refemblance between Spenfer and Homer, not only in the juftnefs of their descriptions and images, but likewife in their diction, expreffions, and conftruction. Homer's language is not a confufion of many dialects: 'tis the old Ionian language, as written in Homer's age: this was the ground-work: but he introduced many terminations, and many an antiquated word and fpelling from the old Ionian, not then in vulgar use. The grammarians not seeing this, have in some particulars imagined that the poet shortened feveral words by abbreviating them*, whereas they were the old original words brought into ufe; just as Spenfer and Milton chofe many Saxon and obfolete words and spellings, to give their poems the venerable caft of antiquity. Spenfer began in his most early writings to affect the old English dialect; and though gently rebuked by his beloved Sidney, yet he knew from no bad † authorities, that the common idiom fhould be often changed for borrowed and foreign terms; and that a kind of veneration is given to antiquity even in phrafes and expreffions. He had not only Homer for his example, but likewife the courtly Virgil ; whom Quintilian calls the greatest lover of antiquity; and though many of these antiquated expreffions are altered by Virgil's tranfcribers and editors, yet ftill they have left us enough to judge of the truth of Quintilian's observation: and as Virgil often imitated Ennius, fo did Spenfer Chaucer.

Were I an admirer of the jingling found of like endings (as Milton calls rhyme) I could with a better grace endeavour at an apology for that kind of ftanza, which our poet has chofen: however this may be offered. In the reign of Q. Elizabeth the two Orlandos, viz. the Inamorato and Furiofo, together with the Gerufalem Liberata of Taffo, were red, admired, and

* See critical obfervations on Shakespeare, p. 364.

+ Ariftot. Rhet. L. 3. C. 2. & Poet. Cap. xii.

De Inftit. Orat. L. 1. Cap. vii.

VOL. I.

e

imitated

imitated: These Italian poets wrote in stanza, of eight verses ; which was called the Octave rhyme, and is faid to be the invention of * Boccace: In this ftanza the ift, 3d, and 5th verses; the 2d, 4th, and 6th; the 7th and 8th, rhyme to each other: In this measure our poet wrote his tranflation of Virgil's Gnat, and his Muiopotmos: according to the following instance. Of all the race of filver-winged flies,

Which doo poffeffe the empire of the aire
Betwixt the centred earth and azure fkies,
Was none more favourable, nor more faire,
(Whilft heav'n did favour his felicities)
Then Clarion, the eldest fonne and haire
Of Mufcaroll, and in his fathers fight
Of all alive did feeme the fairest wight.

When he fixed upon the plan of his epic poem, and intended not to be a fervile imitator, he added one verfe more to the above-mentioned ftanza; and the closing verse, as more fonorous, he made an Alexandrine of fix feet. His ftanza therefore confifts of nine verses of the heroic kind,

in which the 1st and 3d,

the 2d 4th 5th and 7th, the 6th 8th and 9th, rhyme to each other; as in the following inftance :

Lo I the man, whofe Mufe whylome did maske,
As time her taught, in lowly fhepheards weeds,
Am now enforft a farre unfitter taske,
For trumpets fterne to change mine oaten reeds,
And fing of knights and ladies gentle deeds;
Whofe praifes having flept in filence long,
Me all too meane the facred Mufe areeds
To blazon broade emongst her learned throng :
Fierce warres and faithful loves fhall moralize my fong.

* See Dryden's preface to his Fables..

This

This Alexandrine line Dryden often used, " in imitation (as he "*fays) of Spenfer, whom he calls his Mafter: because it adds a certain MAJESTY to the verfe, when 'tis ufed with judgment; and ftops the fenfe from over-flowing into another But Mr. Pope gives all this merit to Dryden.

་

"line."

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verfe, the full refounding line,
The long MAJESTIC MARCH, and energy divine.
Imitat. of Hor. Ep. 1.

B. 2.

Having thus fettered himself with fo many jingling terminations in one stanza; how often, of necessity, must sense, perfpicuity, and poetry, be facrificed for the fake of a rhyme? In order however to make thefe fetters fit more eafy, fome expedients were thought on: and first he intended to introduce hemistics, in imitation of Virgil: but at prefent we have but a few of these broken verses; and those only in the third Book; which I believe he defigned to fill up, had he lived to have finished his poem: just as he filled up the following, in B. iii. C. 6. St. 26. which ftood thus in the 1st edition,

And after them herself eke with her went
To feeke the fugitive

And was thus compleated in the 2d edition.

both farre and nere.

Another expedient he borrowed from the old poets, that would not be allowed to the moderns; which was to make two words, though spelt the fame, yet if of different fignifications, to rhyme to each other. Inftances are frequent in Chaucer and Gower.

* See Dryden's dedication of his tranflation of the Æneid. p. 414. and p. 427.

e 2

But

But one of you, al be hym lothe or lefe,
He must go pipin in an ivie lefe.

Phoebus which is the fun hote,
That fbineth upon erthe hote.

Ch. Knighte's Tale, 1840.

Gower, Lib. 3. Fol. lxviii. 2.

i.e. Phœbus, which is called or named the fun, that fhineth hot upon the earth. However 'tis scarce allowable, though the liberty is too often taken, for two words of the fame fignification thus to rhyme.

The circuite whereof was a myle about,
Wallid with ftone, and dichid all about.

Ch. Knighte's T. 1890.

But confulting other editions befides Urry's, I found the following, and true reading,

and ditched al without.

So in Spenfer, B. i. C. xi. St. 59.

Yet is Cleopolis for earthly fame

The fairest peece

That covet in th' immortal booke of fame

This error, that runs through all the old editions, is corrected from the Errata, which Spenser printed at the end of his first edition. Some errors of like nature are removed by confulting different editions, and fome others from conjecture; but conjectural corrections are placed in the notes. These faults are easily accounted for, by fuppofing the roving eye of the printer caught

with