The sailing pine, the cedar proud and tall,
The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry,
The builder oak, sole king of forests all,
The aspine good for staves, the cypress funeral,
with thirteen more in the next stanza. Every one knows that a natural forest never contains such a variety of species; nor indeed could such a medley as Spenser, treading in the steps of Ovid, has brought together from all soils and climates, exist long if planted by the hands of man. Thus, also, in the last canto of the second book, we have a celebrated stanza, and certainly a very beautiful one, if this defect did not attach to it; where winds, waves, birds, voices, and musical instruments are supposed to conspire in one harmony. A good writer has observed upon this, that “to a person listening to a concert of voices and instruments, the interruption of singing birds, winds, and waterfalls, would be little better than the torment of Hogarth’s enraged musician.”[1229] But perhaps the enchantment of the Bower of Bliss, where this is feigned to have occurred, may in some degree justify Spenser in this instance, by taking it out of the common course of nature. The stanza is translated from Tasso, whom our own poet has followed with close footsteps in these cantos of the second book of the Faery Queen—cantos often in themselves beautiful, but which are rendered stiff by a literal adherence to the original, and fall very short of its ethereal grace and sweetness. It would be unjust not to relieve these strictures, by observing that very numerous passages might be brought from the Faery Queen of admirable truth in painting, and of indisputable originality. The cave of Despair, the hovel of Corceca, the incantation of Amoret, are but a few among those that will occur to the reader of Spenser.
[1228] Vincent Bourne, in his translation of William and Margaret, has one of the most elegant lines he ever wrote:—
Candidior nivibus, frigidiorque manus.
But this is said of a ghost.
[1229] Twining’s Translation of Aristotle’s Poetics, p. 14.
Admiration of the Faery Queen. 89. The admiration of this great poem was unanimous and enthusiastic. No academy had been trained to carp at his genius with minute cavilling; no recent popularity, no traditional fame (for Chaucer was rather venerated than much in the hands of the reader) interfered with the immediate recognition of his supremacy. The Faery Queen became at once the delight of every accomplished gentleman, the model of every poet, the solace of every scholar. In the course of the next century, by the extinction of habits derived from chivalry, and the change both of taste and language, which came on with the civil wars and the restoration, Spenser lost something of his attraction, and much more of his influence over literature; yet, in the most phlegmatic temper of the general reader, he seems to have been one of our most popular writers. Time, however, has gradually wrought its work; and, notwithstanding the more imaginative cast of poetry in the present century, it may be well doubted whether the Faery Queen is as much read or as highly esteemed as in the days of Anne. It is not perhaps very difficult to account for this: those who seek the delight that mere fiction presents to the mind (and they are the great majority of readers), have been supplied to the utmost limit of their craving, by stores accommodated to every temper, and far more stimulant than the legends of Faeryland. But we must not fear to assert, with the best judges of this and of former ages, that Spenser is still the third name in the poetical literature of our country, and that he has not been surpassed, except by Dante, in any other.[1230]
[1230] Mr. Campbell has given a character of Spenser, not so enthusiastic as that to which I have alluded, but so discriminating, and, in general sound, that I shall take the liberty of extracting it from his Specimens of the British Poets, i. 125. “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 characterise 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.”
General parallel of Italian and English poetry. 90. If we place Tasso and Spenser apart, the English poetry of Elizabeth’s reign will certainly not enter into competition with that of the corresponding period in Italy. It would require not only much national prejudice, but a want of genuine æsthetic discernment to put them on a level. But it may still be said that our own muses had their charms; and even that, at the end of the century, there was a better promise for the future than beyond the Alps. We might compare the poetry of one nation to a beauty of the court, with noble and regular features, a slender form, and grace in all her steps, but wanting a genuine simplicity of countenance, and with somewhat of sickliness in the delicacy of her complexion, that seems to indicate the passing away of the first season of youth; while that of the other would rather suggest a country maiden, newly mingling with polished society, not of perfect lineaments, but attracting beholders by the spirit, variety, and intelligence of her expression, and rapidly wearing off the traces of rusticity, which are still sometimes visible in her demeanour.
Sect. V.—On Latin Poetry.