twelve moral virtues, the former plan perhaps would have been best: the latter is defective as it necessarily wants simplicity. It is an action consisting of twelve actions, all equally great and unconnected between themselves, and not compounded of one uninterrupted and coherent chain of incidents, tending to the accomplishment of one design.

I have before remarked, that Spenser intended to express the character of a hero perfected in the twelve moral virtues, by representing him as assisting in the service of all, till at last he becomes possessed of all. This plan, however injudicious, he certainly was obliged to observe. But in the third book, which is styled the Legend of Chastity, Prince Arthur does not so much as lend his assistance in the vindication of that virtue. He appears indeed; but not as an agent, or even an auxiliary, in the adventure of the book.

Yet it must be confessed, that there is something artificial in the poet's manner of varying from historical precision. This conduct is rationally illustrated by himself*. According to this plan, the reader would have been agreeably surprised in the last book, when he came to discover that the series of adventures, which he had just seen completed, were undertaken at the command of the Fairy Queen; and that the Knights had severally set forward to the execution of them, from her annual birth-day festival. But Spenser, in most of the books, has injuriously forestalled the first of these particulars; which certainly should have been concealed 'till the last book, not only that a needless repetition of the same thing might be prevented, but that an opportunity might be secured of striking the reader's mind with a circumstance new and unexpected.

* Letter to Sir W. Raleigh.

But notwithstanding the plan and conduct of Spencer, in the poem before us, is highly exceptionable, yet we may venture to pronounce, that the scholar has more merit than his master in this respect; and that the Fairy Queen is not so confused and irregular as the Orlando Furioso. There is indeed no general unity which prevails in the former; but if we consider every book or adventure as a separate poem we shall meet with so many distinct, however imperfect, unites, by which an attentive reader is less bewildered, than in the maze of indigestion, and incoherence, of which the latter totally consists, where we seek in vain either for partial or universal integrity.

servedly. Yet every classical, every reasonable critic must acknowledge, that the poet's conception in celebrating the madness, or, in other words, describing the irrational acts of a hero, implies extravagance and absurdity. Orlando does not make his appearance till the eighth book, where he is placed in a situation not perfectly heroic. He is discovered to us in bed, desiring to sleep. His ultimate design is to find Angelica, but his pursuit of her is broken off in the thirtieth book; after which there are sixteen books, in none of which Angelica has the least share. Other heroes are likewise engaged in the same pursuit. After reading the first stanza, we are inclined to think, that the subject of the poem is the expedition of the Moors into France, under the emperor Agramanta, to fight against Charlamagne; but this business is the most insignificant and inconsiderable part of it. Many of the heroes perform exploits equal,

if not superior, to those of Orlando; particularly Ruggiero, who closes the poem with a grand and important achievement, the conquest and death of Rodomont. But this event is not the completion of a story carried on, principally and perpetually, through the work.

This spirited Italian passes from one incident to another, and from region to region, with such incredible expedition and rapidity, that one would think he was mounted upon his winged steed Ippogrifo. Within the compass of ten stanzas, he is in England and the Hesperides, in the earth and the moon. He begins the history of a knight 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 harrassed, amidst the multiplicity of tales, in the relation of which the poet is at the same instant equally engaged. To