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 au ward 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 Abbe du Bos ob→ serves, 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 Donni, i Cavallier, l'Arme, gli Amori, 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 care *Orl. Fur. c. 1. s. 1. less exuberance of a warm imagination and a strong 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 decora tions and furniture for his fairy structure. Born in such an age, Spenser wrote rapidly from his own feelings, which at the same time were naturally noble. Exactness in his poem, * 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 certaine delicatesse que donne le gout on y trouveroit quelque chose qui approcheroit plu de la force de M. Ange, que de la grace du Raphael." L'Esprit du Loix, liv. 19. chap. 27. The French critics are too apt to form their general notions of English poetry, from our fondness for Shakspeare. 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 If the Fairy Queen be destitute of that arrangement and economy which epic severity requires, yet we scarcely regret the loss of these, while their place is so amply sup plied by something which more powerfully attract 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 * Parad. Lost, b. iv. v. 241. |