the poet is represented as saying, in reply, that "he had already undertaken a work tending to the same effect, which was in heroic verse, under the title of a Faerie Queen, to represent all the moral virtues, assigning to every virtue a knight, to be the patron and defender of the same; in whose actions, the feats of arms and chivalry, the operations of that virtue whereof he is the protector, are to be expressed; and the vices and unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the same, are to be beaten down and overcome."

Wesley may have referred the theological student to the poetry of Spenser, not more for its copious imagery and beautiful sentiments, than for its abundant, fervid, and melodious diction.

The happy idea of making poetry the hand-maid of religion was not however introduced by Wesley. The Apostle of the Gentiles is known to have been acquainted with the comic theatre of Athens*; Chrysostom placed under his pillow the dramas of Aristophanes; Bossuet studied Homer; and Archbishop Sharpe, whose popular eloquence has been recorded by Burnet, confessed that he owed, in a great degree, to Shakspeare, his introduction to Lambeth. Philosophy has derived her most powerful implement from the same armoury. When Galileo was asked how he attained his fluent and easy style, he ascribed it to the diligent perusal of Ariosto.

In thus rendering chivalry subservient to a great moral purpose, it should be remembered that Spenser was adopt

* See the allusion to Aratus in the seventh chapter of the Acts v. 28. "The comedies of Aristophanes are frequently quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzum, called by way of eminence the Theologian, and by Eustathius; and the remarkable use of the verb veloba, by St. Paul (ad Philip. iv. 12), which occurs six times in our poet's eleven remaining plays, would almost tempt one to imagine that the Great Apostle of the Gentiles was conversant with these valuable remains of Antiquity."-Wheelwright's Preface to his translation of Aristophanes.

ing the method most likely to render his poem interesting and successful. The scenes he described had not then faded from the eyes of the people. The gorgeous tournament and the picturesque splendour of knight-pageantry had not become old and forgotten things. They were not the subjects of history, but of experience. Sir Philip Sidney tilted at one of the entertainments given to the French Ambassador; and not long before, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, the romantic earl of Surrey had made a pilgrimage to Florence, the birth-place of his mistress, and publicly challenged the world in defence of her beauty. If, therefore, the story of the Fairy Queen awaken no lively sympathy in our bosom, we should remember that Spenser addressed it to the sixteenth, and not to the nineteenth century; and that the "fierce wars and faithful loves" were only employed "to moralize his song." Thus in allusion to the characteristic features of his poetry, Bishop Hall spoke of his "misty moral types;" Drayton called him "grave moral Spenser;" and Milton mentioned him affectionately, as "our sage serious Spenser," whom he was not afraid to think " a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas."

Spenser has unfolded the general intention of the Fairy Queen in a letter to his friend Sir Walter Raleigh. He calls the poem a continual Allegory, or dark conceit; the aim of "all the book" being "to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline." In selecting Arthur for his hero, he followed, he said, the example of the most eminent poets of ancient times,—of Homer, who had "ensampled a good governor and vir-. tuous man" in the Iliad and Odyssey; of Virgil, who had designed their union in the Æneid; of Ariosto, who comprised both characters in his Orlando; and lastly, of Tasso, who having dissevered them again, presented the private person and the hero in Rinaldo and Godfredo.

The plot of the poem is developed with equal simplicity in this remarkable letter. Arthur, having been brought up by Timon, to whom he had been delivered by Merlin, is supposed to behold in a dream the Fairy Queen, "with whose excellent beauty ravished," writes the poet, "he awakening resolved to seek her out; and so, being by Merlin armed, and by Timon thoroughly instructed, he went to seek her forth in Fairy Land." How far Spenser adhered to this outline of his pencil it would require a protracted examination to determine.

Warton considers the great defect of the Fairy Queen to arise from the poet having made Arthur a subordinate, instead of the principal character. If he gains Gloriana, it is by the aid of the twelve knights. St. George vanquishes the Dragon, and Britomartis overcomes the Magician. We forget the hero of the Poem in the hero of the Book. This is the argument of Warton, and may be regarded as the revival of Dryden's objection somewhat contracted, that the Fairy Queen was deficient in singleness, uniformity, and completeness. Without making any particular reference to the remarks of Upton, who, according to Warton, came

From every mystic tale

To chase the gloom that hung o'er fairy ground*;

or, to the more ingenious Essay of Hughes, we may pass to the observations of Hurd, one of the most accomplished, though he may not be the most learned, of our critical writers.

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"Judge of the Fairy Queen by the classic models," he says, and you are shocked with its disorder; consider it with an eye to its Gothic original, and you find it regular. The unity and simplicity of the former are more complete,

*1. Observations on the plan of the Fairy Queen.

2. See the verses sent to Mr. Upton on his edition of the Fairie Queen. Warton loved and felt the magical charm of Spenser,

but the latter has that sort of unity and simplicity which results from its nature." He discovers the unity of the poem in the "relation of its several adventures to one common original, the appointment of the Fairy Queen;" and to one common end, the completion of her injunctions. It is a unity of design, not of action. The poem is moulded to the moral. Out of the twelve virtues one illustrious character is to be composed; and this circumstance explains the subordinate position of Arthur who is to obtain the object of his labours, Gloriana, not by surpassing every knight in his own peculiar virtue, but by combining "the whole circle of their virtues in himself." Hurd concludes, therefore, that the allegory of the Fairy Queen is governed by the moral, while the narrative is conducted on the ideas and customs of chivalry. Either of the designs might have been clearly carried out; united, they become perplexed and difficult of separation. The allegory entangles the narrative; and the narrative impedes the allegory.

But these objections, though they may exercise the ingenuity of the critic, detract very slightly from the pleasure of the reader; and it has been happily observed, that the heart is won, while the poetical canon is enforced. I look, with an anxious hope, to some future opportunity of bringing Spenser prominently forward as the Sacred Poet of our country. In so doing, I shall be supported and confirmed by the opinion and example of one of the sweetest poets of our age, who with many of Spenser's notes, has also imbibed much of Spenser's enthusiasm *. "He was in every way calculated," observes the excellent writer, "to answer the purposes of his art, especially in an age of excitation and refinement, in which the gentler and more homely beauties, both of character and of scenery, are too apt

* See an article in the thirty-second volume of the Quarterly Review, p. 231, attributed to Professor Keble.

to be despised; with passion and interest enough to attract the most ardent, and grace enough to win the most polished; and yet by a silent preference everywhere inculcating the love of better and more enduring things." Nor will the lineaments of the Christian character be darkened, to any thoughtful eye, by those "allegorical devises" in which the poet, in his own words, loved cloudily to enwrap them. Spenser should, indeed, be read, as Thomas Warton loved to read him,

At the root of mossy trunk reclined.

Pleasures of Melancholy.

The Muse of his verse seems only to lift her veil before the student in the quiet hour of contemplation; there all the charms of his intellectual physiognomy dawn in their natural lustre, his touching pathos, his moral dignity, and his pensive tenderness.

Sir William Temple regretted that Spenser had not more completely enveloped his moral in his fancy. But the Christian may rejoice in the censure. It is this undertone of religious feeling, mingling with, and melting into, all the rich and various music of his fancy, that imparts to the reflective reader so delicate and lasting a pleasure. Truth seems to glimmer through the darkest allegory, and like his own Una, resting in the wood when fatigued with the search after her knight, "her angel's face," continually

pours

A sunshine in the shady place.

His pictures glow with a southern sunshine, but their richest colours are frequently employed, to heighten and embellish the portrait of Virtue, and his most gorgeous descriptions often point their moral to the heart. His own exquisite line,

Virtue gives herself light through darkness for to wade, might be prefixed as the motto to his poem.