7 Vid. article "Poetry," in No. LXXXIII of Edin. Review, April 1825.

V. Edmond Spenser—Dryden's "father," and Southey's "dear master"—the poet who "threw a rainbow across the heaven of poetry," was born in London. He found, at the age of eighteen or thereabout, that a cousin whom he loved would not receive his suit, and went into Cumberland, where, to pour out his sorrow, he wrote the most mournful portions of the "Shepherd's Calendar." He was for some time Secretary in Ireland,8 under Lord Grey de Wilton, where his Fairy Queen was conceived and partly written; and died A.D. 1598, aged forty-five years.

8 If I mistake not, Edmund Burke spent a portion of his boyhood within sight of the garden where Spenser composed much of his Fairy Queen. What better spot could there be for the education of genius? This life, among scenes constantly exciting associations of the most poetical and refined nature, may have assisted in giving Burke's mind the poetic coloring for which it was so remarkable.

Spenser and the other "fathers" of the English schools of poetry should rather be called "masters of ceremonies," for they certainly did not beget their different orders of composition. Italy was the cradle of these orders, not England. I will however adopt the first and common title, and call Spenser father of the English allegorical and pastoral poetry. And on these I will say a few words before I proceed to his more striking excellencies.

The ancients were particularly fond of allegory. A field as vast as could be desired was here opened for their poets. The whole heathen mythology was a splendid allegory. Virgil's Ænead may be called an allegory. As Eneas conducted the remnant of his countrymen from the Trojan ruins to a new settlement in Italy, so Augustus, from the ruins of the aristocracy, modelled a completely new government. I have not leisure to pursue the parallel. Homer has in the Odyssey many allegorical fables; as for instance those of Circe and Calypso. In imitation of these, Virgil introduced his Dido. Going farther on we find the love of allegory increasing in Italy. Ariosto's Alcina and the Armida of Tasso are "copies from the copy" of Virgil; and coming on English ground we find Spenser stealing from Tasso. As for the kinds of poetry in which allegory should be used—In an epic, persons of the "imaginary life," such as Virgil's

"Strife that shakes
Her hissing tresses, and unfolds her snakes,"

and Spenser's "gnawing JEALOUSY sitting alone and biting his bitter lips"—should by no means enter into the action of the poem. Virgil knew this and made them nothing more than "gate posts to his entrance into Hades."9 The introduction of allegorical personages into the drama is unpardonable. Even in ages when men were laid open by superstition to the insinuating beauty of allegory; when the ignorant imagined every rock to be the pent-house of some spirit; when the timid walked abroad in fear and trembling, and when in consequence of this feeling allegorical paintings even of a wild sort seemed natural and agreeable to truth, its introduction into the drama met with but little applause. Æschylus has often been criticised severely for his frequent errors of this sort; one of which is his introduction of STRENGTH, as a character who assists Vulcan in binding Prometheus to his rock.

9 All lavish embellishment—such as Tasso's description of the bower of bliss, in his "Jerusalem," which the reader will find transplanted into the second book of Spenser's Fairy Queen—should likewise be excluded from the epic. This species of poem—the grandest of all species—should be superior to such embellishment.

Though excluded from epic and dramatic poetry, it may be used with great aptness in poems of a descriptive nature. We thus find that pastoral poetry often admits of an allegorical vein. Spenser knew this, and has given us a happy instance in that eclogue of his Shepherd's Calendar, in which he represents the union of the rivers Briqoq and Mulla. He has still happier instances in Æcloga tertia and in Æcloga quinta.

Spenser likewise acted as master of ceremonies to pastoral poetry in its introduction to English literature. The great father of this order was Theocritus. His follower was Virgil, who combined very skilfully the merum rus of the Idyllia with his own courtly grace. Tasso in his Aminta imitated Virgil, and was in turn imitated by a host of contemporary and subsequent poets among his countrymen. Without copying Tasso in this as in other things, Spenser became the head of English pastoral poetry, and has never yet been excelled.