Among My Books Volume Ii Part 20

[297] Book II. c. 9.

[298] See Sidney's "Defence," and Puttenham's "Art of English Poesy,"

Book I. c. 8.

[299] We can fancy how he would have done this by Jeremy Taylor, who was a kind of Spenser in a ca.s.sock.

[300] Of this he himself gives a striking hint, when speaking in his own person he suddenly breaks in on his narrative with the pa.s.sionate cry,

"Ah, dearest G.o.d, me grant I dead be not defouled."

_Faery Queen_, B. I. c. x. 43.

[301] Was not this picture painted by Paul Veronese, for example?

"Arachne figured how Jove did abuse Europa like a bull, and on his back Her through the sea did bear: ...

She seemed still back unto the land to look, And her playfellows' aid to call, and fear The das.h.i.+ng of the waves, that up she took Her dainty feet, and garments gathered near....

Before the bull she pictured winged Love, With his young brother Sport, ...

And many nymphs about them flocking round, And many Tritons which their horns did sound."

_Muiopotmos_, 281-296.

Spenser begins a complimentary sonnet prefixed to the "Commonwealth and Government of Venice" (1599) with this beautiful verse,

"Fair Venice, flower of the last world's delight."

Perhaps we should read "lost"?

[302] Marlowe's "Tamburlaine," Part I. Act V. 2.

[303]

Grayheaded Thought, nor much nor little, may Take up its lodging here in any heart; Unease nor Lack can enter at this door; But here dwells full-horned Plenty evermore.

_Orl. Fur._, e. vi. 78.

[304] B. I. c. iii. 7. Leigh Hunt, one of the most sympathetic of critics, has remarked the pa.s.sionate change from the third to the first person in the last two verses.

[305] B. II. c. viii. 3.

[306] Observations on Faery Queen, Vol. I pp. 158, 159. Mr. Hughes also objects to Spenser's measure, that it is "closed always by a fullstop, in the same place, by which every stanza is made as it were a distinct paragraph." (Todd's Spenser, II. xli.) But he could hardly have read the poem attentively, for there are numerous instances to the contrary. Spenser was a consummate master of versification, and not only did Marlowe and Shakespeare learn of him, but I have little doubt that, but for the "Faery Queen," we should never have had the varied majesty of Milton's blank verse.

[307] As where Dr. Warton himself says:--

"How nearly had my spirit past, Till stopt by Metcalf's skilful hand, To death's dark regions wide and waste And the black river's mournful strand, Or to," etc.,

to the end of the next stanza. That is, I had died but for Dr.

Metcalf 's boluses.

[308] Iliad, XVII. 55 _seqq_. Referred to in Upton's note on Faery Queen, B. I. c. vii. 32. Into what a breezy couplet trailing off with an alexandrine has Homer's [Greek: pnoiai pantoion anemon] expanded!

Chaplin unfortunately has slurred this pa.s.sage in his version, and Pope _t.i.ttivated_ it more than usual in his. I have no other translation at hand. Marlowe was so taken by this pa.s.sage in Spenser that he put it bodily into his _Tamburlaine_.

[309] Inferno, XXIV. 46-52.

"For sitting upon down, Or under quilt, one cometh not to fame, Withouten which whoso his life consumeth Such vestige leaveth of himself on earth As smoke in air or in the water foam."

_Longfellow._

It shows how little Dante was read during the last century that none of the commentators on Spenser notice his most important obligations to the great Tuscan.

[310] Faery Queen, B. II. c. iii. 40, 41.

[311] Ibid., B. I. c. v. 1.

[312] Ibid., B. II. c. viii. 1,2.

[313] B. III. c. xi. 28.

[314] B. I. c. i. 41.

[315] This phrase occurs in the sonnet addressed to the Earl of Ormond and in that to Lord Grey de Wilton in the series prefixed to the "Faery Queen". These sonnets are of a much stronger build than the "Amoretti", and some of them (especially that to Sir John Norris) recall the firm tread of Milton's, though differing in structure.

[316] Daphnaida, 407, 408.

[317] Faery Queen, B. I. c. x. 9.

[318] Strictly taken, perhaps his world is not _much_ more imaginary than that of other epic poets, Homer (in the Iliad) included. He who is familiar with mediaeval epics will be extremely cautious in drawing inferences as to contemporary manners from Homer. He evidently _archaizes_ like the rest.