But that she masked it with modestie, For feare she should of lightnesse be detected: Which to another place I leave to be perfected.

[NOTWITHSTANDING the action of the Fairy Queen is simple and uniform: (for, what is the action of this poem, but the Briton Prince, seeking Gloriana, whom he saw in a vision? and what is the completion of the action, but his finding whom he sought?) yet the several subservient characters, plots, intrigues, tales, combats, tilts, and tournaments, with the like apparatus of Romances, make the story in all its circumstances very extensive and complicated; resembling some ancient and magnificent pile of Gothick architecture, which the eye cannot comprehend in one full view. Therefore, to avoid confusion, 'tis requisite that the poet should ever and anon (in the vulgar phrase) wind up his bottoms; his underplots and intrigues should be unravelled from probable consequences; and, what belongs to the main action and more essential parts of the poem, should, as in a well-conducted drama, be reserved for the last act. In this respect our poet proceeds with great art and conduct; he clears the way for you, whilst you are getting nearer, in order that you might have a complete and just view of his poetical building. And in this fourth Book many are the distresses, and many the intrigues, which are happily solved. Thus lovers and friends find at length their fidelity rewarded. But 'tis to be remember'd that love and friendship can subsist only among the good and honest; not among the faithless and disloyal; not among the Paridels and Blandamoures; but among the Scudamores, the Triamonds, and Cambels. 'Tis with these that the young hero (whom Spenser often shows you, as Homer introduces his Achilles, lest you should think him forgotten, though not mentioned for several Cantos;) 'tis, I say, in company with these lovers and friends, that the Briton Prince is to learn what true love and friendship are; that, being perfected in all virtues, he may attain the glory of being worthy of the Fairy Queen.

This fourth Book differs very remarkably from all the other Books: here no new Knight comes from the Court of

the Fairy Queen upon any new adventure or quest but the poet gives a solution of former distresses and plots; exhibits the amiableness of friendship and love; and, by way of contrast, the deformities of discord and lust.

As no writer equals Spenser in the art of imaging, or bringing objects in their full and fairest view before your eyes; (for you do not read his descriptions; you see them ;) so, in all this kind of painting, he claims your attention and admiration. Such for instance in this Book, is the dwelling of Ate, C. i. st. 20. The house of the three fatal sisters, C. ii. st. 47. The machinery and interposition of Cambina, C. iii. st. 38. The cottage of old Care, the blacksmith, C. v. st. 33. Greedy lust, in the character of a savage, C. vii. st. 5. Infectious lust, in the character of a giant, whose eyes dart contagious fire, C. viii. st. 38. The whole story, which Scudamour tells of his gaining of Amoret (in C. x.) is all wonderful, and full of poetical machinery: and the episode of the marriage of the Thames and Medway is so finely wrought into the poem, as to seem necessary for the solution of the distresses of Florimel, that at length she might be made happy with her long-look'd for Marinell. UPTON.

A few words more may be said of the beautiful allegory of Scudamour's courtship to Amoret; an allegory, to use the words of The Tatler, "so natural, that it explains itself in which the persons are very artfully described, and disposed in proper places. The posts assigned to Doubt, Delay, and Danger, are admirable. The Gate of Good Desert has something noble and instructive in it. But, above all, I am most pleased with the beautiful groupe of figures in the corner of the Temple. Among these Womanhood is drawn like what the philosophers call an Universal Nature, and is attended with beautiful representatives of all those virtues that are the ornaments of the Female Sex, considered in its natural perfection and innocence."

The reader will also look back with pleasure to the wellimagined and well-described circumstances of Care himself as well as of his abode. Nor are the gallant deeds of Britomart, the contention for Florimel's Girdle, and the overthrow of Corflambo by Prince Arthur, to be enumerated without acknowledgement to Spenser's happy talents of invention and exhibition. TODD.]