different in the subject (and yet how like in beauty) is the following description of the Bower of Bliss: "Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound Such as at once might not on living ground, Was there consorted in one harmonee : Birds, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree. The joyous birdes shrouded in chearefull shade Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The remainder of the passage has all that voluptuous pathos, and languid brilliancy of fancy, in which this writer excelled: The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay; Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly she Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty, That fairer seems the less ye see her may ! Her bared bosom she doth broad display; So passeth in the passing of a day Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower; That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower Gather therefore the rose whilst yet is prime, * Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime.* He ceased; and then gan all the quire of birds As in approvance of his pleasing wordes. The constant pair heard all that he did say, Upon a bed of roses she was laid As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin; *Taken from Tasso. †This word is an instance of those unwarrantable freedoms which Spenser sometimes took with language. вково * Rather the roses, while Old Time is still a Je Styring And the some flower that blooms to day And was arrayed or rather disarrayed, All in a veil of silk and silver thin, But rather shewed more white, if more might be : Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see Her snowy breast was bare to greedy spoil Of hungry eyes, which n' ote therewith be fill'd. The finest things in Spenser are, the character of Una, in the first book; the House of Pride; the Cave of Mammon, and the Cave of Despair; the account of Memory, of whom it is said, among other things, "The wars he well remember'd of King Nine, the description of Belphœbe; the story of Florimel and the Witch's son; the Gardens of Adonis, and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and But some Colin Clout's vision, in the last book. people will say that all this may be very fine, but that they cannot understand it on account of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it would bite them: they look at it as a child looks at a painted dragon, and think it will strangle them in its shining folds. This is very idle. If they do not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them. Without minding it at all, the whole is as plain as a pike-staff. It might as well be pretended that we cannot see Poussin's pictures for the allegory, as that the allegory prevents us from understanding Spenser. For instance, when Britomart, seated amidst the young warriors, lets fall her hair and discovers her sex, is it necessary to know the part she plays in the allegory, to understand the beauty of the following stanza? "And eke that stranger knight amongst the rest Tho when as vailed was her lofty crest, Her golden locks that were in trammels gay And raught unto her heels like sunny beams Or is there any mystery in what is said of Belphoebe, that her hair was sprinkled with flowers and blossoms which had been entangled in it as she fled through the woods? Or is it necessary to have a more distinct idea of Proteus, than that which is given of him in his boat, with the frighted Florimel at his feet, while the cold icicles from his rough beard Dropped adown upon her snowy breast!" Or is it not a sufficient account of one of the seagods that pass by them, to say "That was Arion crowned : So went he playing on the watery plain." Or to take the Procession of the Passions that draw the coach of Pride, in which the figures of Idleness, of Gluttony, of Lechery, of Avarice, of Envy, and of Wrath speak, one should think, plain enough for themselves; such as this of Gluttony: "And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony, Deformed creature, on a filthy swine; His belly was up blown with luxury; And eke with fatness swollen were his eyne; For want whereof poor people oft did pine. |