"A friend of mine" (as we all say, when we are looking out for a masque under which to praise ourselves or to abuse the verses of any 'dear' acquaintance)--"a friend of mine" has written a very long review (or analysis rather) of the German Walladmor in a literary journal of the metropolis. He concludes it with the following passage, which I choose to quote--partly on account of the graceful allusion which it contains, and partly because it gives me an opportunity of trying my hand at an allusion to the same beautiful and romantic legend:
"Now turning back from the hoaxer to the hoax, we shall conclude with this proposition.--All readers of Spenser must know that the true Florimel lost her girdle; which, they will remember, was found by Sir Satyrane--and was adjudged by a whole assemblage of knights to the false Florimel, although it did not quite fit her. She, viz. the snowy Florimel,
----exceedingly did fret;
And, snatching from her hand half angrily
The belt again, about her body gan it tie.
Yet nathemore would it her body fit:
Yet natheless to her, as her dew right,
It yielded was by them that judged it.
Faery Queene, B. IV. C 5.
"'By them that judged it!' and who are they? Spenser is here prophetic, and means the Reviewers. It has been generally whispered that the true Scotch Florimel has latterly lost her girdle of beauty. Let this German Sir Satyrane, then, indulgently be supposed to have found it: and, whilst the title to it is in abeyance, let it be adjudged to the false Florimel: and let her have a licence to wear it for a few months until the true Florimel comes forward in her original beauty, dissolves her snowy counterfeit, and reclaims her own 'golden cestus.'"