This sharp lament broke out in 1760, when, only two years before, the two rival editions of Church and Upton had simultaneously appeared; and the latter could at least boast both of the novelty and the curiosity of its commentary. But literary commentators held forth few attractions to the incurious readers of that day. More than thirty years have now elapsed since the last classical edition of Spenser’s works. But at no period was Spenser ever forgotten by poetical recluses; and professed imitations of our poet in modern times, though they may not always be Spenserian, have never ceased, from Shenstone to Mickle, and from Beattie to Byron.
[1] The Lee is the stream.
[2] I offer some instances of alliteration; but the beauty of such lines can only be rightly judged by the context.—
| “In woods, in waves, in wars, she wonts to dwell And will be found with peril and with pain.” “Such as a lamp whose life does fade away, Or as the moon cloathed with cloudy night.” “A world of waters, Horrible, hideous, roaring with hoarse cry.” “They cherelie chaunt, and rymes at random flung, The fruitful spawn of their rank fantasies; They feed the ears of fools with flattery.” “All the day before the sunny rays, He used to slug or sleep, in slothful shade.” “Unpitied, unplagued, of foe or friend.” “And with sharp shrilling shriek do bootless cry.” “Did stand astonish’d at his curious skill, With hungry ears to hear his harmony.” |
[3] Spenser has suffered a criticism from Mr. Campbell, who, a great poet himself, has otherwise done ample justice to his ancient master. “It must certainly be owned that in description he exhibits nothing of the brief strokes and robust power which characterize the very greatest poets.” Certain it is Spenser is rarely “brief and robust;” but contrary natures cannot operate in the same genius. If Spenser rarely shows the strength and brevity of “the very greatest poets,” so may it be said that “the very greatest poets” rarely rival the charm of his diffusion; or, as Mr. Campbell himself attests, in “verse more magnificently descriptive.” But the voice of Poetry is more potent than its criticism, and truly says Mr. Campbell—“We shall nowhere find more airy and expansive images of visionary things, a sweeter tone of sentiment, or a finer flush in the colour of language, than in this Rubens of English Poetry.”
Twining was a scholar, deeply versed in classical lore, which he has shown to great advantage in his “Version of and Commentary on Aristotle’s Treatise of Poetry.” In his Dissertations “On Poetical and Musical Imitation” prefixed to this work, our critic is quite at home with Pope and Goldsmith, but he seems wholly shut out from Spenser! In a note to his first Dissertation he tells us “the following stanza of Spenser has been much admired:”—
| The joyous birds shrouded in cheareful shade, Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet; Th’ angelical soft trembling voices made To th’ instruments divine respondence meet; The silver-sounding instruments did meet With the base murmurs of the waters-fall; The waters-fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The gentle-warbling wind low answered to all.* |
Our critic observes that Dr. Warton says of these lines, that “they are of themselves a complete concert of the most delicious music.” Indeed, this very stanza in Spenser has been celebrated long before Joseph Warton wrote, and often since; now listen to our learned Twining:—
“It is unwillingly that I differ from a person of so much taste. I cannot consider as music, much less as ‘delicious music,’ a mixture of incompatible sounds—of sounds musical with sounds unmusical. The singing of birds cannot possibly be ‘attempered’ to the notes of a human voice. The mixture is, and must be, disagreeable. To a person listening to a concert of voices and instruments, the interruption of singing-birds, wind, and water-falls, would be little better than the torment of Hogarth’s enraged musician. Further, the description itself is, like too many of Spenser’s, coldly elaborate, and indiscriminately minute. Of the expressions, some are feeble and without effect, as ‘joyous birds’—some evidently improper, as ‘trembling voices’ and ‘cheerful shades;’ for there cannot be a greater fault in a voice than to be tremulous, and cheerful is surely an unhappy epithet applied to shade—some cold and laboured, and such as betray too plainly the necessities of rhyme; such is—