And raise pleasure to her height, NOTE BY PREVIOUS EDITORS. The Amoretti, or Sonnets, describe the commencement and progress of Spenser's love for the lady whom he married, which event is made the subject of the Epithalamion which follows. All we know of her is, that her name was Elizabeth, as appears from the seventy-fourth Sonnet. In the sixtieth Sonnet, he informs us that he was then forty years old, and that a year had passed since the commencement of his passion. These Sonnets are interesting, as illustrating the biography of the poet; and they are also remarkable for that purity and delicacy of feeling so characteristic of Spenser, into the sanctuary of whose mind no coarse or unhandsome image ever intruded itself. But their literary merit is not more than respectable, and in no form of poetical composition is mediocrity less tolerable than the sonnet. They are not free from the cold conceits of his age, and their monotonous and languid flow of sentiment is seldom enlivened by rich poetry, or any uncommon beauty of language. They naturally provoke a comparison with Shakspeare's Sonnets, to which they are greatly inferior. [The author of these remarks dissents from the opinion here expressed, and refers to his remarks for his reasons.] G. W. SENIOR,* TO THE AUTHOR. DARKE is the day, when Phoebus face is shrouded, АH! Colin, whether on the lowly plaine, * "Perhaps George Whetstone, a poetaster and dramatic writer, in the reign of Elizabeth."-TODD. 10 Or whether, in thy lovely Mistresse praise, Thy Muse hath got such grace and power to please, As who therein can ever ioy their fill! O! therefore let that happy Muse proceed Can rase those records of thy lasting praise. G. W. JUNE. |