When we float along the stream of his melodious song, conscious only of its beauty, we do not often pause at elevations which raise the feeling of the sublime. Such daring visions, when they do rise on us, rather indicate the power of his genius than the habit of his mind. Our gentle Spenser was often satisfied with rivalling without surpassing his originals, which Milton and Gray ever did when they copied. It seems, therefore, unreasonable to assert that Spenser has combined the daring sternness of Dante with the wild fantasy of Goethe. Yet their lofty creations have not gone beyond those of Spenser’s personifications of Despair—of Fear—of Confusion—of Astonishment—of laborious Care, that workman in his smithy, living amid the unceasing strokes of his perpetual hammers—or of Jealousy, from a mortal man metamorphosed with Ovidean fancy: his single eye, for he had long worn out the other, never could be closed; no slumber could press down those restless lids; tenant of a cavern, listening day and night to the roaring billows incessantly beating his abode, threatening with its huge ruins to fall on the wretch wasting in self-torments, till, nothing left of him, he vanished into a flitting aëry sprite—
Forgot he was a Man, and Jealousy is hight.[4]
There are two sublime descriptions of Night which may be read together. In the one she is the
Sister of heavie Death, and nurse of Woes!
and elsewhere she appears as
| That most ancient Grandmother of all, Older than Jove—— |
Night befriending Deceit and Shame, takes one of their daughters, the witch Duessa, in her “pitchy mantle;” yoking her coal-black steeds to her iron waggon, they penetrate to the inferior regions, bearing a mortal caitiff to be restored to this wicked life—“the messenger of death” passing over the earth, the screeching owl, the baying dogs, the howling wolf, warn of the witch’s presence; and in hell the trembling ghosts stand
| Chattering with iron teeth, and staring wide With stonie eyes—and flock’d on every side To gaze on Earthly Wight that with the Night durst ride.[5] |
The sublime fragment on “Mutability,” where Nature is viewed seated mysteriously amid the creation, has not been excelled by the most philosophical poets.
| Great Nature ever young, yet full of eld, Still moving, yet immoved from her sted; Unseen of any, yet of all beheld, Thus sitting on her throne—— |