Spenser excels in gorgeous diffusion-Byron in stern and gloomy concentration. Spenser supplies innumerable subjects for pictures. Byron, hardly one, except his own melancholy form, prematurely old, unutterably wretched, with "faded splendour wan," and thick scars of thunder on his brow, conversing with all the mighty miserable of mankind-with all the ruins of Art, and all the terrors of Nature. Of Spenser himself, in "The Faerie Queene," we hear little; when he is there he is deeply masked. Byron, in "Childe Harold," is the sole hero -the principal topic, and the mask he wears is transparent as gauze or glass. Yet, from the protruded personality of the later poet, as well as from his deep and gloried-in despair, we believe that "Childe Harold" is more interesting to the vast majority of readers than "The Faerie Queene," and that the "Address to the Ocean," with all its faults, has moved more to wonder and to tears of sublime emotion than Spenser's "Palace of Pride," "House of Mammon," or his picture of the "Chariot of the Night," although this latter be almost worthy of Eschylus or Dante. Thus too often does passion, although only half from Heaven, and which can rather run than fly, outstrip the winged poetry. In some points, as we have already hinted more than once, Shelley bears a striking resemblance to Spenser, and the “Revolt of Islam" is probably in spirit, as well as in measure, the most Spenserian poem in the language. There is the same love of personifying the abstract, the same exuberance of imagery and diction, the same powerful and melting melody, the same dreamlike and unearthly tone of sentiment, and, in parts, the same unfathomable obscurity. But, in Spenser, the strength is vastly greater, as is proved by the superior calmness of the strain. The allegorical figures, as we have seen, are more life-like and interesting, partly because he deals with them in a more sensuous spirit, and uses a richer brush. The purpose of the "Revolt of Islam" is revolutionary— that of "The Faerie Queene" is religious. Through the fervour and fury of the young apostle of the movement, the dignified Spenserian stanza is sometimes hurried out of its propriety, it assumes a trumpet-tone which jars on the spirit of allegoric song, to which, in general, the line of Wordsworth is applicable "Calm pleasures there abide, majestic pains." Hence, the "Revolt of Islam" is rather a great lyric poem, cast into the Spenserian shape, than a romantic epic. Yet we confess to have found in its first and last cantos, particularly the latter, where he paints the spirit-world, a fascination, a dreamy pomp of description, and a weird harmony of versification not unworthy of the author of "The Faerie Queene," and suggesting the thought that had the author lived he might have emulated its imaginative triumphs, although, as it is, the "Revolt of Islam," with all its transcendant merits, must be condemned as a monstrous mixture of French politics and irreligion, with the rarest elements of English poetry. It is by "The Faerie Queene" that Spenser has ever been, or ever will be, best known in the world of letters. That casts a shadow so broad, that his other productions are dwindled and obscured. Yet, had these existed alone, they were enough to have established his fame. His "Shepherd's Calendar," although written in a diction too obsolete to be popular-although not sufficiently minute and painstaking in its pictures of the various seasons of the year—and although, for a pastoral, shadowed by a chilly and ungenial gloom, as though the wind in Colin Clout's country blew constantly from the east-is yet full of ingenious fancies, and natural images. It must not, however, be named with Virgil's "Eclogues," with "Theocritus," with the "Pastor Fido," and least of all with the "Gentle Shepherd," the finest pastoral in the world. His "Muioptomos Daphnaida," "Mother Hubbard's Tale," "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," and his "Epithalamium," are greatly superior to the "Shepherd's Calendar," and contain passages-such as his picture of Raleigh in "Colin Clout," and that of the Bride in the "Epithalamium" -which have never been surpassed. Take the latter— VOL III. "Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright, Her forehead ivory white, Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded, Her lips like cherries charming men to bite, Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded, Her b Her snowy neck like to a marble tower, To honour's seat and chastity's sweet bower." The great defect in "The Faerie Queene" is one incident to its plan the absence of human interest. Shakspeare, in his most imaginative plays, never altogether forgets, or allows us to forget, the ongoings of the everyday world. Trinculo and Stephano mingle with Ariel and Caliban in the "Tempest;" and Bottom and Quince relieve the supernaturalism of the "Midsummer Night's Dream." But in Spenser the earth and all its doings are shut out or transformed, and although we hear of sun, moon, and stars, it is in reality the glory of "The Faerie Queene's countenance, in which for a season we walk and bask and have our being. Yet, while this lack of human feeling has deterred many, it has attracted others to its pages. It was this which made Gray habitually read Spenser's poem when he wished to rouse his mind to composition. It was this that excited the emulation of Shelley, who was besides "enticed by the brilliancy and magnificence of sound, which a mind that has been nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by a just and harmonious arrangement of the pauses of the Spenserian measure." It was this that made Scott and Southey always salute Spenser as their Master," and that drew forth the yet profounder homage of Wordsworth, who, perhaps, of all poets resembled Spenser most in the power of idealising nature, and transfiguring thought into beauty; and who, in an exquisite poem to his wife, thus speaks of Una and her poet "Ah then, beloved! pleasing was the smart, And faithful, loyal in her innocence, Like the brave lion slain in her defence. Notes could we hear as of a Faery shell Attuned to words with sacred wisdom fraught; |