in Europe, and suddenly breaks it off to resume the unfinished catastrophe of another in Asia. The reader's imagination is distracted, and his attention harassed, amidst the multiplicity of tales, in the relation of which the poet is at the same instant equally engaged. To remedy this inconvenience, the compassionate expositors have affixed, in some of the editions, marginal hints, informing the bewildered reader in what book and stanza the poet intends to recommence an interrupted episode. This expedient reminds us of the aukward artifice practised by the first painters. However, it has proved the means of giving Ariosto's admirers a clear comprehension of his stories, which otherwise they could not have obtained, without much difficulty." This poet is seldom read a second time in order; that is, by passing from the first canto to the second, and from the second to the rest in succession: by thus pursuing, without any regard to the proper course of the books and stanzas, the different tales, which though all somewhere finished, yet are at present so mutually complicated, that the incidents of one are perpetually clashing with those of another The judicious Abbé du Bos observes happily enough, that Homer is a geometrician in comparison of Ariosto.' His miscellaneous contents cannot be better expressed than by the two first verses of his exordium :

Le Donne, i Cavalier, l'Arme, gli Amori, 'Le Cortesie, l'audaci Imprese, io canto.'

W

But it is absurd to think of judging either Ariosto or Spenser by precepts which they did not attend to. We, who live in the days of writing by rule, are apt to try every composition by those laws which we have been taught to think the sole criterion of excellence. Critical taste is universally diffused, and we require the same order and design which every modern performance is expected to have, in poems where they never were regarded or intended. Spenser, (and the same may be said of Ariosto,) did not live in an age of planning. His poetry is the careless exuberance of a warm imagination and a strong i sensibility. It was his business to engage the fancy, and to interest the attention by bold and striking images*, in the formation, and the disposition of which, little labour or art was applied. The various and the marvellous were the chief sources of delight. Hence we find our author ransacking alike the regions of reality and romance, of truth and fiction, to find the proper decorations and furniture for his fairy structure. Born in such an age, Spenser wrote rapidly from

*Montesquieu has partly characterised Spenser, in the judgement he has passed upon the English poets, which is not true with regard to all of them. 'Leurs poetes auroient plus souvent cette rudesse originale de l'invention, qu' une cer⚫taine delicatesse que donne le gout: on y trouveroit quelque chose qui approcheroit plus de la force de M. Ange, que de la grace du Raphael. L'Esprit du Loix, liv. 19. chap. 27. The French criticks are too apt to form their generat notions of English poetry, from our fondness for Shakspeare. T. WARTON.

his own feelings, which at the same time were naturally noble. Exactness in his poem would have been like the cornice which a painter introduced in the grotto of Calypso. Spenser's beauties are Like the flowers in Paradise:

-Which not nice Art

In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon Pour'd forth profuse, on hill, and dale, and plain, Both where the morning sun first warmly smote The open field, and where the unpierc'd shade 'Imbrown'd the noon-tide bowers.'

Par. L. B. iv. 241.

If the Faerie Queene be destitute of that arrangement and economy which epick severity requires, yet we scarcely regret the loss of these while their place is so amply supplied, by something which more powerfully attracts us something, which engages the affections, the feelings of the heart rather than the cold approbation of the head. If there be any poem, whose graces please, because they are situated beyond the reach of art, and where the force and faculties of creative imagination delight, because they are unassisted and unrestrained by those of deliberate judgement, it is THIS. In reading Spenser if the critick is not satisfied, yet the reader is transported. T. Warton.

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85

MR. WARTON'S

REMARKS

ON

SPENSER'S IMITATIONS FROM OLD

ROMANCES.

ALTHOUGH Spenser formed his Faerie Queene upon the fanciful plan of Ariosto, yet it must be confessed, that the adventures of his knights are a more exact and immediate copy of those which we meet with in old romances, or books of chivalry, than of those which form the Orlando Furioso. Ariosto's knights exhibit surprising examples of their prowess, and achieve many heroick actions. But our author's knights are more professedly engaged in revenging injuries, and doing justice to the distressed; which was the proper business, and ultimate end of the ancient knight-errantry. And thus, though many of Spenser's incidents are to be found in Ariosto, such as that of blowing a horn, at the sound of which the gates of a castle fly open, of the vanishing of an enchanted palace or garden after some knight has destroyed the enchanter, and the like; yet these are not more peculiarly the property of Ariosto, than they are

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common to all ancient romances in general. Spenser's first Book is, indeed, a regular and precise imitation of such a series of action as we frequently find in books of chivalry. For instance; A king's daughter applies to a knight, that he would relieve her father and mother, who are closely confined to their castle, upon account of a vast and terrible dragon, that had ravaged their country, and perpetually laid wait to destroy them. The knight sets forward with the lady, encounters a monster in the way, is plotted against by an enchanter, and, after surmounting a variety of difficulties and obstacles, arrives at the country which is the scene of the dragon's devastation, kills him, and is presented to the king and queen, whom he has just delivered; marries their daughter, but is soon obliged to leave her, on account of fulfilling a former vow.

It may be moreover observed, that the circumstance of each of Spenser's twelve knights, departing from one place, by a different way, to perform a different adventure, exactly resembles that of the seven knights entering upon their several expeditions, in the well-known romance, entitled The Seven Champions of Christendom. In fact, these miraculous books were highly fashionable; and chivalry, which was the subject of them, was still practised and admired, in the