But notwithstanding the plan and conduct of Spencer, in the poem before us, is highly exceptionable, yet we may venture to pronounce, that the scholar has more merit than his master in this respect; and that the Fairy Queen is not so confused and irregular as the Orlando Furioso. There is indeed no general unity which prevails in the former; but if we consider every book or adventure as a separate poem we shall meet with so many distinct, however imperfect, unites, by which an attentive reader is less bewildered, than in the maze of indigestion, and incoherence, of which the latter totally consists, where we seek in vain either for partial or universal integrity.

Cum nec pes nec caput uni

Reddatur Forma*.

Ariosto has his admirers, and most de

VOL. I.

*Hor. Art. Poet. v. 8.

C

servedly. Yet every classical, every reasonable critic must acknowledge, that the poet's conception in celebrating the madness, or, in other words, describing the irrational acts of a hero, implies extravagance and absurdity. Orlando does not make his appearance till the eighth book, where he is placed in a situation not perfectly heroic. He is discovered to us in bed, desiring to sleep. His ultimate design is to find Angelica, but his pursuit of her is broken off in the thirtieth book; after which there are sixteen books, in none of which Angelica has the least share. Other heroes are likewise engaged in the same pursuit. After reading the first stanza, we are inclined to think, that the subject of the poem is the expedition of the Moors into France, under the emperor Agramanta, to fight against Charlamagne; but this business is the most insignificant and inconsiderable part of it. Many of the heroes perform exploits equal,

4

if not superior, to those of Orlando; particularly Ruggiero, who closes the poem with a grand and important achievement, the conquest and death of Rodomont. But this event is not the completion of a story carried on, principally and perpetually, through the work.

This spirited Italian passes from one incident to another, and from region to region, with such incredible expedition and rapidity, that one would think he was mounted upon his winged steed Ippogrifo. Within the compass of ten stanzas, he is in England and the Hesperides, in the earth and the moon. He begins the history of a knight in Europe, and suddenly breaks it off to resume the unfinished catastrophe of another in Asia. The reader's imagination is distracted, and his attention harrassed, amidst the multiplicity of tales, in the relation of which the poet is at the same instant equally engaged. To

remedy this inconvenience, the compassionate expositors have affixed, in some of the editions, marginal hints, informing the bewildered reader in what book and stanza the poet intends to recommence an interrupted episode. This expedient reminds us of the aukward artifice practised by the first painters. However, it has proved the means of giving Ariosto's admirers a clear comprehension of his stories, which otherwise they could not have obtained, without much difficulty. This poet is seldom read a second time in order; that is, by passing from the first canto to the second, and from the second to the rest in succession by thus pursuing, without any regard to the proper course of the books and stanzas, the different tales, which though all somewhere finished, yet are at present so mutually complicated, that the incidents of one are perpetually clashing with those of another. The judicious Abbe du Bos observes, happily enough, that "Homer is a

geometrician in comparison of Ariosto."His miscellaneous contents cannot be better expressed than by the two first verses of his exordium.

Le Donni, i Cavallier, l'Arme, gli Amori,
Le Cortegie, le' audaci Imprese, io canto*.

But it is absurd to think of judging either Ariosto or Spenser by precepts which they did not attend to.. We who live in the days of writing by rule, are apt to try every composition by those laws which we have been taught to think the sole criterion of excellence. Critical taste is universally diffused, and we require the same order and design which every modern performance is expected to have, in poems where they never were regarded or intended. Spenser, and the same may be said of Ariosto, did not live in an age of planning. His poetry is the care

* Orl. Fur. c. 1. s. 1.