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careful and difficult study, and matured through a long childhood; but with scarcely a day's existence it had the strength of centuries. It poured into its rich treasury the highest genius and the profoundest thought, it embodied the boldest imagination with the most accurate observation. It held in its huge embrace whatever was great in poetry, in philosophy, and in truth; and, excepting that, were the whole imaginative literature of our language swept away, we might still look back with pride, and boast the possession of such authors as Shakspeare, Ben Johnson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Marlowe, Webster, Shirley, Massinger, and Ford, all of whom adorned the reigns of Elizabeth and her successors, the Stuarts, and were sufficient for the fame of a literary nation.

I have made this short digression because the best poetry of the age we are now entering upon is contained in the dramatic form, and it has been a custom (convenient for my present limits) to consider the drama as a distinct branch of literature. To have passed it wholly in silence would have appeared strange, in speaking of those celebrated in its annals; and with this brief allusion to its rise, I will pass to the consideration of our more immediate subject, without again recurring to the theatrical excellence of the period, which I hope will be borne in mind by my readers.

After Lord Buckhurst followed CHURCHYARD, and EDWARDS, whose works have not retained much popu

larity, although those of the former have been reprinted; LILLY, who introduced the fantastic style called Euphuism, and GASCOYNE, who divided his performances into weeds, flowers, herbs, &c. and was one of the early writers of narrative blank verse.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE is chiefly celebrated as a dramatic poet, but he translated Coluthus' Rape of Helen, and Museus' Hero and Leander, and has left us some musical and unaffected songs which are still popular.

SIR PHILIP SYDNEY, who, for his accomplishments and the similarity of their positions, has been compared to Surrey, was at once a hero, a politician, and a poet. Refined in his manners, chivalrous in his sentiments, and [ generous in his disposition, he was a proud ornament to the court and the age in which he lived; and the anecdote of his fate at the battle of Zutphen, when, being mortally wounded, he commanded the cup of water brought for his relief to be given to a dying soldier who eyed it wistfully, will be remembered as one of those beautiful traits of humanity, which redeem our nature from its taints of dross and passion, and rise, like temples, at which men of all climes and ages, the sinner and the saint, alike bow down and do homage. Sir Philip Sydney's most popular production is a romance entitled Arcadia; but his poems, though infected with a conceit of thought and expression common to the period, have much quiet beauty, shewing amidst all their faults the refined imagination and delicate

feelings of the author, and perhaps doubly interesting because they flowed from the pen of one so celebrated in the history of his country, and renowned for the most engaging virtues of human nature.

SPENSER possessed in an exalted degree a boundless and creative fancy. He held the golden keys of romance, and at his bidding visions crowded with life and beauty streamed upon the world. Nature teemed with a new existence, with new features and new forms. Scenes aerialized with the most delicate tints stretched far and wide; all was sunny and spiritual. Enchantment yielded her wonders and her glowing superstitions, Imagination breathed over them the breath of life, and the result was one of the most exquisite and delightful poems that fancy ever conceived or genius realized. He supposes the Faery Queen presiding at her annual court, which lasted in splendor and festivity for twelve days. Every day some suppliant is presented at her throne; she listens to the prayers of all, and commands twelve knights (each of whom personifies some exalted virtue) to espouse the cause and redress the grievances of the mourners. Prince Arthur representing Magnificence in pursuit of Glory, is by turns the counsellor and ally of these embodied phantoms of chivalry, and was intended to represent a brave knight perfected in the twelve moral virtues. whole allegory celebrates the triumph of good principles over the various temptations of sense and dangers of worldly dissipation. It was originally contained in

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twelve books, but of these six and part of the seventh only are extant, and each book is divided into twelve cantos. The first book contains the legend of the Knight of the Red Cross, or Holiness; the others the several legends of Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, Courtesy, and a fragment of that of Constancy. Each of these knightly virtues is exposed to the machinations of the vices most interested in its overthrow, and these vices are personified with an ingenuity at once marvellous and precise. The spirit of knight errantry runs through the whole poem. All is chivalrous and adventurous; and notwithstanding the difficulty of the design, the interest is generally lively, and the mind is too fascinated by the variety of images and change of character thronging before it in rapid succession, to be palled by the length or satiated by the subject. The great strength of the poem lies in the legends of Holiness, Temperance, and Chastity; aud it is questioned, from the occasional want of spirit in some of the succeeding books, whether Spenser's fame has suffered by the loss of part of his manuscript. His versification is elegant, sustained, and frequently lofty; musically harmonious and simple, and written in the stanza which is now called by the poet's name, and has been adopted in later times with great success by Beattie and Byron. The language of Spenser is less modern than that of some of his contemporaries or immediate followers; a circumstance that may perhaps be attributed to the nature of his subject, which the quaintness and antiquity of his expressions serve rather

to embellish. As a specimen of the power of personification and description I will quote his picture of the House of Sleep:

He making speedy way through spersed ayre,
And through the world of waters wide and deepe,
To Morpheus' house doth hastily repaire.

Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe,

And low, where dawning day doth never peepe,

His dwelling is, there Tethys his wet bed

Doth ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steepe,

In silver deaw, his ever-drouping hed,

Whiles sad Night over him her mantle black doth spred.

Whose double gates he findeth locked fast,

The one fayre fram'd of burnisht yvory,

The other all with silver overcast;

And wakeful dogges before them farre doe lye,

Watching to banish Care their enimy,

Who oft is wont to trouble gentle sleepe.

By them the sprite doth passe in quietly,

And unto Morpheus comes, whom drowned deepe
In drowsie fit he findes; of nothing he takes keepe.

And more to lulle him in his slumber soft,

A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe,
And ever-drizling raine upon the loft,

Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne.

No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,

As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne,
Might there be heard; but careless Quiet lyes
Wrapt in eternal silence farre from enimyes.

The Faery Queen, as an allegorical poem, is without equal in our language. It transports us from the every day world to realms of undimmed sunshine or unbroken

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