As S I have found it registred of old In Faery land mongst records permanent] Spenfer had admiffion to these moft authentic records of Fairies and Fairy land by favour of the Mufe, who alone had the cuftody of them. We must take his word for the truth of this, as he has fo confidently afferted it in many paffages throughout his poem. III.

As Hecate in whofe almighty hand

He plac't all rule and principality.] Hecate was the fame as Luna, and Luna was the daughter of Hyperion, one of the Titans. See Natales Comes, Mythol. L. iii. C. 15. In heaven fhe was named Luna, on earth Diana, in hell Hecate. Hence Virgil, vi. 247

Voce vocans Hecaten, coloque Erebóque potentem.

on our poet's poem: for these two Cantos, that treat of Mutability, are the only relicks of part of the Seventh Book, intitled The Legend of Conftancie.

то

VI.

So that Enyo or Bellona is to be distinguished from Pallas or Minerva, the goddess of Wifdom: and this is the reason why I have departed from the first quarto in B. iii. C. 9. St. 22. which reads Bellona: and have printed it Minerva from other editions.

IV.

And heavenly honours, yield as to them twaine] viz. to Hecate and Bellona.

V.

would rather read, She did pervert, and all THEIR ftatutes burst] I

-and all HER ftatutes burft,

viz. Nature's. So below, St. 6. She broke the laws of Nature.

VIII.

Ne ftaide till fhe the higheft STAGE had feand Where Cynthia did SIT-1 I believe Spenfer

wrote SIEGE not STAGE.

Ne faide till fhe the highest fiege had fcand
Where Cynthia did fit.

This is plain from St. 12.

But fhee that had to her that fovereign feat
By highest Fove affign'd—

Ibid. ver. 333.

And in their own dimenfions, like themselves,
The great feraphic Lords and Cherubim

In clofe recefs and fecret conclave SAT,
A thoufand demy-gods on golden SEATS
Frequent and full.

Hinc feffe pecudes pingues per fabula læta
Corpora deponunt—
Lucret. i. 258.

See other inftances, if neceffary, in Broukhu-
fius' notes on Tibullus, Lib. iii. Eleg. v.
verf. 22. Hot is likewife a very proper epithet,
and ufed in the fame fenfe as Cicero ufes Gali-
dus, in Offic. L. i. C. 24. periculofa et Calida
confilia. And Terent. Eun. Act. ii. vide ne ni-
mium calidum hoc fit modo. So the Greeks ufe
you
Sappòs, calidus.Ariftoph. Plut. verf. 415. N Depuò
pro calidum facinus, i. e. animo nimis calido et
accenfo patratum. H. Stephens. Hinc gia
θερμεργία,
fomewhat prolix in vindicating our author, 'tis to
audax et temerarium facinus:- If we have been
fhow how claffical he is in his manner of ex-
preffing himself, even where he is thought to
be faulty.
XXIII.

Before they could new counsells reallie] i. e. rallie get in order, from rallier: q. d. realligare: fo Skinner; agreeable to our poet's spelling. XXV.

Whence art thou, and what dooeft thou here now make?

a SEAT or SIEGE.

fake!] Hughes omits thou in the fecond verfe : but as 'tis abforpt in scanfion, it might fairly be admitted without any violence to the measure.

XXIX.

I would bave thought that bold Procufles hire

Or Typhons fall-] I was willing to have thought, that the just punishments inflicted by me, as a reward for their wickedness, either immediately, as an Typhon, Ixion, or Prometheus; (great in wisdom as well a in defcent ;) or mediately, by the powers I delegated, viz. by Hercules, Thefeus, &c. who flew tyrants, and oppressors of mankind, fuch for inftance was Procruftes, &c. &c. -Spenfer writes Procuftes, following his ufual way of mifwriting proper names and Procruftes is put here for any robber or oppreffor of mankind, that met with his due punishment. XXX.

-With that be booke
His nectar-deawed locks, with which the skyes
And all the world beneath for terror quooke.]

Terrificam capitis concuffit terque quaterque
Cæfariem, cum quâ terram, mare, fidera, movit.
Ov. Met. i. 179%

Così dicendo il capo moffe: e gli ampi
Cieli tremaro-

Taffo, xiii. 74.

・fo was his will Pronounc'd among the gods; and by an oath That shook heav'n's whole circumference, confirm'd. Milton, ii. 331.

Milton fays by an oath, not by a nod: for Milton does not give God the Father, human parts or form; befides the expreffion is fcriptural: not so other poets,

Η, καὶ κυανίησιν ἐπ' ὅρουσι νυσε Κρονίων.

— μίγαν δ ̓ ἐλέλιξεν Ολυμπον.

This verfe Spenser had in view above, St. 22.

His black eye-brow, whofe dhomeful dreaded beck
Is wont to wield the world-

So Horace, L. 3. Od. i.
Cuneta fupercilio moventis.
And Virgil, ix. 106.

Annuit, et totum nutu tremfecit Olympum.
Mr. Pope thus tranflates Homer's well-known

verfes,

He fpoke, and awful bends his fable brows; Shakes his ambrofial curls, and gives his nod, The ftamp of fate, and fanction of the god: High heaven with trembling the dread fignal took, And all Olympus to the centre hook. This one word curls degrades the whole image; and what was great in Homer becomes ludicrous as expreffed by the translator.

XXXI.

But ah! if gods fhould strive with flesh yfere Then fhortly should the progeny of man Berooted out, if fove should doe ftill what he can.] My Spirit fhall not always ftrive with man, for that be alfo is flesh, Gen. vi. 3. Yea, many a time turned he his wrath away-for he confidered that they were but flesh, Pfal. lxxviii. 39. The conftruction is fomewhat confused, If gods should ftrive together with flesh, and if fove fhould doe ftill what he is able to do, then shortly would the progeny of man be rooted out. In Chaucer and our old poets we frequently meet with yfere, ifere, in fere, for together.

XXXIII.

May challenge ought in heavens intereffe] In Hughes' edit. 'tis printed Intereft: which spoils the jingle. Spenfer uses the Ital. interesse.

XXXV.

But to the highest Him, that is behight
Father of gods and men by equal might

To weet, the god of Nature, I appeale] Him the highest father of gods and men-the god of Nature: But below, Canto viii. St. 5. he says, Then forth iffu'd (great goddesse) great dame Nature. The reader must not be furprized to find in one place a deity called a God, in another a Goddeffe: for as Milton observes, i. 423.

Spirits when they please Can either fex affume, or both. According to the Orphick verfes Jupiter (i. e. as there intended, univerfal Nature, or in Spenfer's words, The God of Nature) is of both fexes, male and female; as confifting of active and paffive principles. Pan likewife (as the name imports) is faid to be the god of Nature: Pan totius Nature deus eft: Servius in Virg. Ecl. ii. 31. Pan ab antiquis diebus fuit [lego, dictus fuit] deus natura. Albricus de Deor. Imag. Cap. ix. Nature is spoken of as the chiefeft of the deities in Statius, xii. 561.

Heu princeps Natura! ubi numina, ubi ille When Lucretius, and the like atheistical writers, Fulminis injufti jaculator ?--speak of Nature, with the epithets, creatrix fome unknown power working blindly for the rerum, gubernans, omniparens, &c. they mean fays, By Nature I mean the God of Nature. And general good but Seneca, as a good theist, the Stoics when they addrefs Nature, mean not that blind goddefs of the Epicureans, but an univerfal mind acting for the good of the whole, hereby recognizing a divine nature, or making nature a kind of handmaid of the Deity. From thefe and the like confiderations of the various energies of Nature, and her myfterious appearand 6. in Canto vii. Nor will that ancient inances, we may fee into the meaning of Stanza 5. fcription in Gruter want any further expla

nation :

ΦΥΣΙΣ ΠΑΝ ΑΙΟΛΟΣ HANT. MHT.

Ibid.

And bade Dan Phoebus fcribe-] Dan Phoebus the fcribe of the gods.

XXXVI.

Of my old father Mole, whom shepherds quill Renowmed bath---] Alluding to his poem intitled Colin Clout's come home again.

One day (quoth be) I fat as was my trade,
Under the foot of Mole, that mountaen hore
Keeping my fheep---

Old father Mole (Mole hight that mountain gray
That walls the north-fide of Armulla dale)
He had a daughter, &c. &c.

XL.

That Shepheard Colin dearly did condole.] Which ftory Colin Clout (Spenfer himfelf) did dearly condole in his poem intitled Colin Clout's come home again.

--- Save

FOR who but thou alone

That art yborne of heav'n and heavenly fire, Can tell things doen in heav'n fo long agone.] The poet, reaffuming his fubject, calls upon the affiftance of the Muse, in imitation of his brother poets. Compare Homer. Il. ii. 484.

Dicite nunc Mufæ cæleftia tecta tenentes ; Nam vos divæ eftis, nec abeftis, cunctaque noftis ; Ad nos vix tenuis famæ perlabitur aura. See likewife Virg. vii. 641. and Milton i. 27. Say firft, for heav'n hides nothing from thy view

IV.

VII.

Ipfa, i. e. fponte fuâ. Compare a like image in
Lucretius i. Tibi fuaves dadala Tellus fummittit
flores. And in Homer. II. 347. From whom
"
Milton, in B. viii. 513. So our poet again in
St. 10.

And all the earth far underneath her feet
Was dight with flowers that voluntary grew
Out of the ground---

IX.

So hard it is---] This Stanza I think misplaced, it seems to me that it fhould be put after the 12th Stanza. For fee how regularly they follow each other.

But th' earth itfelf of her free motion
Out of her fruitful bofome made to grow
Moft dainty trees-St. 8.

And all the earth far underneath her feet
Was dight with flowers-St. 10.
And Mole himself to honour her the more—
Was never fo great joyance--- St. 11.
So hard it is for any living wight---St. ix.

Ibid.

That old dan Geffrey---- in his Foules parley] viz. The affemble of Foules [edit. Urry. page 413. See ver. 302, &c.]

Ibid.

But it transferd to Alane, who he thought

Had in his plaint of KINDES defcribed it well. We must read plaint of kinde: fo Chaucer, in the Affemble of Foules, verf. 316.

And right as Alaine in the plaint of KINDE
Devifeth Nature of foch araie and face-

He refers to a treatife written by Alanus de Infulis,

fulis, DE PLANCTU NATURE contra Sodomie vitium: This book was never (fo far as I can find) printed, nor ever feen by Spenfer, which makes him fay,

Which who will read fet forth, fo as it ought,

Go feek he out that Alane, where he may be fought. There is a MS. of this Alane, De Planetu Natura, of the plaint of kinde, or of Nature, in the Bodley Library: which begins thus,

In lacrymas rifus, in luctus gaudia verto,
In planctum plaufus, in lacrymofa jocos.

X.

Tenne thousand mores of fundry fent and bew.] In Hughes' edition 'tis fpelt more: we use the word in the Weft of England for roots, &c. Somner, Anglo-S. moɲan, acini, baccæ, femina.

XII.

calls the beafts The wild burgees of the foreft. And Davenant in Gondibert, B. ii. C. 6. St. 69. with Spenfer, perhaps, in his eye, fays, Each bumbled thus his beasts led from aboard,

As fellow paffengers and heirs to breath, Joint tenants to the world, he not their lord. The thought was too pretty to efcape the notice of Mr. Pope, hence in his Effay of Man, iii.

152.

Man walk'd with beaft joint tenant of the fhade.

XXV.

Thus all these four (the which the ground-work bee Of all the world-] The poet had his eye on Pythagoras' doctrine in Ovid. Met. xv. 239. Quatuor æternus genitalia corpora mundus Continet

XXX.

On Haemus bill-'twixt Peleus and dame Thetis.--] He fays the bridale of Peleus and Thetis was celebrated on Haemus (a hill on the confines of Theffaly) because Ovid reciting the amours of Peleus and Thetis (Met. xi. 229.] begins, Eft finus Haemoniae, &c. And Peleus is called Haemonius Peleus, by Tibullus, L. i. Eleg. vi. verf. 9. But Apollodorus fays exprefly, p. 218. that the marriage was celebrated on Pelion and Catullus who wrote the Epithalamium (Spenfer alluding to it fays Phoebus felf did fing the poufall hymne) begins with, Peliaco quondam, &c.

XIII.

This great grandmother of all creatures bred, Great Nature-] This great grandmother of all creatures that ever were bred or born, viz. great Nature, &c. He feems to call Nature great grandmother, &c. in imitation of Orpheus' hymn to Nature,

Ω Φύσι, παμμήτειρα θεά, πολυμήχανε μήτης.

See the note above on Canto vi. St. 35. And fpeaking of Nature, ftill moving, yet unmoved from her fted, he feems to have Boetius in his eye, who thus addreffes the God of Nature, —Stabilifq; manens das cuncta movere.

XVII.

XXXII.

And in a bag all forts of feeds ysame,] i. e. collected together: 'tis a participle, from the Anglo-Sax. ramnian, or geramnian, to collect or gather together: the Anglo-S. ge was into y, and prefixed oftentimes to participles. afterwards by our old English writers changed Yfame is not in this paffage now before us, the adverb, rame, fimul, una, pariter: though the very learned editor of Junius feems to think fo, YSAME, yfome,fimul, unà. Spenferus. Anglo-S. ram. Goth. Samana, quod confonum eft Gr.ua.''Tis not yfame, that is an adverb; but fame or fam: as our poet ufes it in his Eclogue named May, verf. 168.

6

،

For what concord have light and darke SAM ?

i. e. together. Let me add in confirmation of my interpretation the Teutonick, SAMMEN

XVIII.

fum total of many particulars collected together though a Latinift will not doubt but that we had this word from them.