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less exuberance of a warm imagination and a strong sensibility. It was his business to engage the fancy, and to interest the attention by bold and striking images*, in the formation, and the disposition of which, little labour or art was applied. The various and the marvellous were the chief sources of delight. Hence we find our author ransacking alike the regions of reality and romance, of truth and fiction, to find the proper decorations and furniture for his fairy structure. Born in such an age, Spenser wrote rapidly from his own feelings, which at the same time were naturally noble. Exactness in his poem,

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Montesquieu has partly characterised Spenser, in the judgement he has passed upon the English poets, which is not true with regard to all of them." Leurs poetes auroient plus souvent cette rudesse originale de l'invention, qu' une certaine delicatesse que donne le gout on y trouveroit quelque chose qui approcheroit plu de la force de M. Ange, que de la grace du Raphael." L'Esprit du Loix, liv. 19. chap. 27. The French critics are too apt to form their general notions of English poetry, from our fondness for Shakspeare.

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would have been like the cornice which a painter introduced in the grotto of Calypso, Spenser's beauties are like the flowers in Paradise.

-Which not nice art

In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
Pour'd forth profuse, on hill, and dale, and plain;
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, or where the unpierced shade
Imbrown'd the noon-tide bowers*.-

If the Fairy Queen be destitute of that arrangement and œconomy which epic severity requires, yet we scarcely regret the loss of these, while their place is so amply sup plied by something which more powerfully attract us: something which engages the affections, the feelings of the heart, rather than the cold approbation of the head. If there be any poem whose graces please, because they are situated beyond the reach

* Parad. Lost, b. iv. v. 241.

of art, and where the force and faculties of creative imagination delight, because they

are unassisted and unrestrained by those of deliberate judgment, it is this. In reading Spenser, if the critic is not satisfied, yet the reader is transported.

SECT. II.

Of Spenser's Imitations from old Romances.

ALTHOUGH Spenser formed his Faerie Queene upon the fanciful plan of Ariosto, yet it must be confessed, that the adventures of his knights are a more exact and immediate copy of those which we meet with in old romances, or books of chivalry, than of those which form the Orlando Furioso, Ariosto's knights exhibit surprising examples of their prowess, and achieve many heroic actions. But our author's knights are more professedly engaged in revenging injuries, and doing justice to the distressed; which was the proper business, and ultimate end of the ancient knight-errantry. And thus, though many of Spenser's incidents are to be found in Ariosto, such as that of blowing a horn, at the sound

of which the gates of a castle fly open, of the vanishing of an enchanted palace or garden, after some knight has destroyed the enchanter, and the like; yet these are not more peculiarly the property of Ariosto, than they are common to all ancient romances in general. Spenser's first book is, indeed, a regular and precise imitation of such a series of action as we frequently find in books of chivalry. For instance-a king's daughter applies to a knight, that he would relieve her father and mother, who are closely confined to their castle upon account of a vast and terrible dragon, that had ravaged their country, and perpetually laid wait to destroy them. The knight sets forward with the lady, encounters a monster in the way, is plotted against by an enchanter, and after surmounting a variety of difficulties and obstacles, arrives at the country which is the scene of the dragon's devastation, kills him, and is presented to the king and queen

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