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CHAUCER- -SPENSER.

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afterwards, happily drawn to the more natural style of Boccaccio ; and from him he derived the hint of a subject, in which, besides his own original portraits of contemporary life, he could introduce stories of every description, from the most heroic to the most familiar."— p. 71-73,

"Wharton, with great beauty and justice, compares the appearance of Chaucer in our language, to a premature day in an English spring; after which the gloom of winter returns, and the buds and blossoms, which have been called forth by a transient sunshine, are nipped by frosts and scattered by storms. The causes of the relapse of our poetry, after Chaucer, seem but too apparent in the annals of English history; which, during five reigns of the fifteenth century, continue to display but a tissue of conspiracies, proscriptions, and bloodshed. Inferior even to France in literary progress, England displays in the fifteenth century a still more mortifying contrast with Italy. Italy, too, had her religious schisms and public distractions; but her arts and literature had always a sheltering place. They were even cherished by the rivalship of independent communities, and received encouragement from the opposite sources of commercial and ecclesiastical wealth. But we had no Nicholas the Fifth, nor House of Medicis. In England, the evils of civil war agitated society as one mass. There was no refuge from them - no enclosure to fence in the field of improvement - no mound to stem the torrent of public troubles. Before the death of Henry VI. it is said that one half of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom had perished in the field, or on the scaffold!"

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The golden age of Elizabeth has often been extolled, and the genius of Spenser delineated, with feeling and eloquence. But all that has been written, leaves the following striking passages as original as they are eloquent.

"In the reign of Elizabeth, the English mind put forth its energies in every direction, exalted by a purer religion, and enlarged by new views of truth. This was an age of loyalty, adventure, and generous emulation. The chivalrous character was softened by intellectual pursuits, while the genius of chivalry itself still lingered, as if unwilling to depart; and paid his last homage to a Warlike and Female reign. A degree of romantic fancy remained too, in the manners and superstitions of the people; and Allegory might be said to parade the streets in their public pageants and festivities Quaint and pedantic as those allegorical exhibitions might often be, they were nevertheless more expressive of erudition, ingenuity, and moral meaning, than they had been in former times. The philosophy of the highest minds, on the other hand, still partook of a visionary character. A poetical spirit infused itself into the practical heroism of the age; and some of the worthies of that period seem less like ordinary men, than like beings called forth out of fiction, and arrayed in the brightness of her dreams.

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CAMPBELL -HIS CHARACTER OF SPENSER.

They had high thoughts seated in hearts of courtesy.' The life of Sir Philip Sydney was poetry put into action.

"The result of activity and curiosity in the public mind was to complete the revival of classical literature, to increase the importation of foreign books, and to multiply translations, from which poetry supplied herself with abundant subjects and materials, and in the use of which she showed a frank and fearless energy, that criticism and satire had not yet acquired power to overawe. Romance came back to us from the southern languages, clothed in new luxury by the warm imagination of the south. The growth of poetry under such circumstances might indeed be expected to be as irregular as it was profuse. The field was open to daring absurdity, as well as to genuine inspiration; and accordingly there is no period in which the extremes of good and bad writing are so abundant,' p. 120-122.

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"The mistaken opinion that Ben Jonson censured the antiquity of the diction in the Fairy Queen,' has been corrected by Mr. Malone, who pronounces it to be exactly that of his contemporaries. His authority is weighty; still, however, without reviving the exploded error respecting Jonson's censure, one might imagine the difference of Spenser's style from that of Shakespeare's, whom he so shortly preceded, to indicate that his Gothic subject and story made him lean towards words of the elder time. At all events, much of his expression is now become antiquated; though it is beautiful in its antiquity, and, like the moss and ivy on some majestic building, covers the fabrie of his language with romantic and venerable associations.

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His command of imagery is wide, easy, and luxuriant. He threw the soul of harmony into our verse, and made it more warmly, tenderly, and magnificently descriptive than it ever was before, or, with a few exceptions, than it has ever been since. It must certainly be owned, that in description he exhibits nothing of the brief strokes and robust power which characterize the very greatest poets: But we shall nowhere find more airy and expansive images of visionary things, a sweeter tone of sentiment, or a finer flush in the colours of language, than in this Rubens of English poetry. His fancy teems exuberantly in minuteness of circumstance; like a fertile soil sending bloom and verdure through the utmost extremities of the foliage which it nourishes. On a comprehensive view of the whole work, we certainly miss the charm of strength, symmetry, and rapid or interesting progress; for, though the plan which the poet designed is not completed, it is easy to see that no additional cantos could have rendered it less perplexed. But still there is a richness in his materials, even where their coherence is loose, and their disposition confused. The clouds of his allegory may seem to spread into shapeless forms, but they are still the clouds of a glowing atmosphere. Though his story grows desultory, the sweetness and grace of his manner still abide by him. We always rise from perusing him with melody in the mind's ear, and with pictures of romantic beanty impressed on the imagination.". p. 124-127.

In his account of the great dramatic writers of that and the succeeding reign, Mr. C.'s veneration for Shakespeare

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OF BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

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has made him rather unjust, we think, to the fame of some of his precursors.-We have already said that he passes Marlowe with a very slight notice, and a page of citation.-Greene, certainly a far inferior writer, is treated with the same scanty courtesy-and there is no account and no specimen of Kyd or Lodge, though both authors of very considerable genius and originality. With the writings of Peele, we do not profess to be acquainted-but the quotations given from him in the Essay should have entitled him to a place in the body of the work.-We must pass over what he says of Shakespeare and Jonson, though full of beauty and feeling. To the latter, indeed, he is rather more than just.-The account of Beaumont and Fletcher is lively and discriminating.

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"The theatre of Beaumont and Fletcher contains all manner of good and evil. The respective shares of those dramatic partners, in the works collectively published with their names, have been stated in a different part of these volumes. Fletcher's share in them is by far the largest; and he is chargeable with the greatest number of faults, although at the same time his genius was more airy, prolific, and fanciful, There are such extremes of grossness and magnificence in their drama, so much sweetness and beauty interspersed with views of nature either falsely romantic, or vulgar beyond reality; there is so much to animate and amuse us, and yet so much that we would willingly overlook, that I cannot help comparing the contrasted impressions which they make, to those which we receive from visiting some great and ancient city, picturesquely but irregularly built, glittering with spires and surrounded with gardens, but exhibiting in many quarters the lanes and hovels of wretchedness. They have scenes of wealthy and high life, which remind us of courts and palaces frequented by elegant females and high-spirited gallants, whilst their noble old martial characters, with Caractacus in the midst of them, may inspire us with the same sort of regard which we pay to the roughhewn magnificence of an ancient fortress.

"Unhappily, the same simile, without being hunted down, will apply but too faithfully to the nuisances of their drama. Their language is often basely profligate. Shakespeare's and Jonson's indelicacies are but casual blots; whilst theirs are sometimes essential colours of their painting, and extend, in one or two instances, to entire and offensive scenes. This fault has deservedly injured their reputation; and, saving a very slight allowance for the fashion and taste of their age, admits of no sort of apology. Their drama, nevertheless, is a very wide one, and has ample room and verge enough' to permit the attention to wander from these, and to fix on more inviting pcculiarities as on the great variety of their fables and personages, their

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CAMPBELL- - HIS ESTIMATE OF MILTON.

spirited dialogue, their wit, pathos, and humour. Thickly sown as their blemishes are, their merits will bear great deductions, and still remain great. We never can forget such beautiful characters as their Cellide, their Aspatia and Bellario, or such humorous ones as their La Writ and Cacafogo. Awake they will always keep us, whether to quarrel or to be pleased with them. Their invention is fruitful; its beings are on the whole an active and sanguine generation; and their scenes are crowded to fulness with the warmth, agitation, and interest of actual life. -p. 210-213.

Some of the most splendid passages in the Essay are dedicated to the fame of Milton--and are offerings not unworthy of the shrine.

"In Milton," he says, "there may be traced obligations to several minor English poets: But his genius had too great a supremacy to be long to any school. Though he acknowledged a filial reverence for Spenser as a poet, he left no Gothic irregular tracery in the design of his own great work, but gave a classical harmony of parts to its stupendous pile. It thus resembles a dome, the vastness of which is at first sight concealed by its symmetry, but which expands more and more to the eye while it is contemplated. His early poetry seems to have neither disturbed nor corrected the bad taste of his age. - Comus came into the world unacknowledged by its author, and Lycidas appeared at first only with his initials. These, and other exquisite pieces, composed in the happiest years of his life, at his father's country-house at Horton, were collectively published, with his name affixed to them, in 1645; but that precious volume, which included L'Allegro and Il Penseroso did not (I believe) come to a second edition, till it was republished by himself at the distance of eight-andtwenty years. Almost a century elapsed before his minor works obtained their proper fame.

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Even when Paradise Lost first appeared, though it was not neglected, it attracted no crowd of imitators, and made no visible change in the poetical practice of the age. He stood alone, and aloof above his times the bard of immortal subjects, and, as far as there is perpetuity in language, of immortal fame. The very choice of those subjects bespoke a contempt for any species of excellence that was attainable by other men. There is something that overawes the mind in conceiving his long-deliberated selection of that theme his attempting it after his eyes were shut upon the face of nature- his dependence, we might almost say, on supernatural inspiration, and in the calm air of strength with which he opens Paradise Lost, beginning a mighty performance without the appearance of an effort."

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The warlike part of Paradise Lost was inseparable from its subject. Whether it could have been differently managed, is a problem which our reverence for Milton will scarcely permit us to state. feel that reverence too strongly to suggest even the possibility that Milton could have improved his poem, by having thrown his angelic warfare into more remote perspective: But it seems to me to be most sublime when it is least distinctly brought home to the imagination.

MILTON- -HIS SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERS.

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What an awful effect has the dim and undefined conception of the conflict, which we gather from the retrospects in the first book! There the veil of mystery is left undrawn between us and a subject which the powers of description were inadequate to exhibit. The ministers of divine vengeance and pursuit had been recalled-the thunders had ceased

To bellow through the vast and boundless deep,'

(in that line what an image of sound and space is conveyed!)-and our terrific conception of the past is deepened by its indistinctness. In optics there are some phenomena which are beautifully deceptive at a certain distance, but which loose their illusive charm on the slightest approach to them that changes the light and position in which they are viewed. Something like this takes place in the phenomena of fancy. The array of the fallen angels in hell- the unfurling of the standard of Satan- -and the march of his troops

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In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood

Of flutes and soft recorders,'—

all this human pomp and circumstance of war is magic and overwhelming illusion. The imagination is taken by surprise. But the noblest efforts of language are tried with very unequal effect, to interest us in the immediate and close view of the battle itself in the sixth book; and the martial demons, who charmed us in the shades of hell, lose some portion of their sublimity, when their artillery is discharged in the daylight of heaven.

If we call diction the garb of thought, Milton, in his style, may be said to wear the costume of sovereignty. The idioms even of foreign languages contributed to adorn it. He was the most learned of poets; yet his learning interferes not with his substantial English purity. His simplicity is unimpaired by glowing ornament, like the bush in the sacred flame, which burnt but was not consumed.'

"In delineating the blessed spirits, Milton has exhausted all the conceivable variety that could be given to pictures of unshaded sanctity; but it is chiefly in those of the fallen angels that his excellence is conspicuous above every thing ancient or modern. Tasso had, indeed, portrayed an infernal council, and had given the hint to our poet of ascribing the origin of pagan worship to those reprobate spirits. But how poor and squalid in comparison of the Miltonic Pandaemonium are the Scyllas, the Cyclopses, and the Chimeras of the Infernal Council of the Jerusalem! Tasso's conclave of fiends

is a den of ugly incongruous monsters. The powers of Milton's hell are godlike shapes and forms. Their appearance dwarfs every other poetical conception, when we turn our dilated eyes from contemplating them. It is not their external attributes alone which expand the imagination, but their souls, which are as colossal as their staturetheir thoughts that wander through eternity—the pride that burns amidst the ruins of their divine natures, and their genius, that feels with the ardour, and debates with the eloquence of heaven.”p. 242-247.

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