| ——————Two swans of goodly hue, Came softly swimming down along the Lee;[1]— |
and “The Epithalamium” on the poet’s own nuptials, or, as the poet notes—
| Song made in lieu of many ornaments, With which my Love should duely have been deck’d. |
One feature in Spenser’s versification seems to have escaped notice, although Warton has expressly written a dissertation on that subject. It is Spenser’s discreet use of alliteration; never obtrusive, but falling naturally into the verse, it may escape our perception while it is acting on our feeling. Unconsciously or by habit, his ear became the echo of his imagination; sound was the response of thought, and, as much as his epithets, scattered the “orient hues” of his fancy. Alliteration and epithets, which with mechanical versificators are a mere artifice, because only an artifice, and glare and glitter, charm by their consonance when they rise out of the emotions of the true poet.[2]
Some persons have been deterred from venturing on the “Faery Queen” from a notion that the style had rusted with time, and is as obsolete as chivalry itself. This popular prejudice has been fostered by an opinion of Ben Jonson, which probably referred chiefly to “The Shepherd’s Calendar,” where Spenser had adopted a system of Chaucerian words, which to us is more curious than fortunate, and which on the first publication required a glossary. This system he abandoned in his romantic epic; but he loved to sprinkle some remaining graces of antiquity, some naïve expressions, or some picturesque words; and his modern imitators, amid their elaborate pomp, have felt the secret charm, and have mottled their Spenserian stanza with these archaisms.
Of all poets Spenser excelled in the pictorial faculty. His circumstantial descriptions are minute yet vivid. They are, indeed, exuberant, for he loved not to quit his work while he could bring the object closer to the eye. This diffusion, flowing with the melody of his verse, often raises the illusion of reverie till we seem startled by reality, and we appear to have beheld what only we have been told.[3] Poet of poets! Spenser made a poet at once of Cowley, and once lent an elegant simplicity to Thomson. Gray was accustomed to open Spenser when he would frame
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn;
and Milton, who owned Spenser to have been his master as well as his predecessor, lingered amid his musings, and with many a Spenserian image touched into perfection his own sublimity.
In associating the name of Spenser with Milton and Gray, we are reminded of the distinctness of his poetic faculty, and the difference of his personal character. Spenser, tender, elegant, and fanciful, rarely participated in their condensed energies or the severity of their greatness; the personal character of our courtly poet was moulded by his position in society.