She spewd out of her filthy maw,

A flood of poison horrible and black;

Full of great lumps of flesh and gobbets raw,
Which stunk so vilely, that it forc'd him slack
His grasping hold.

As also in the discovery of Duessa, 1. 8. 47. 48. He is likewise very indelicate, where he speaks of Serena's wounds.

For now her wounds corruption 'gan to breed.

And to forbear disagreeable citations, see 7.7. 31. and 7. 7. 40. The truth is, the strength of our author's imagination could not be suppressed on any subject; and, in some measure, it is owing to the fulness of his stanza, and the reiteration of his rhymes, that he describes these offensive objects so minutely.

But to return to his Envy. This personage is again introduced, 5. 12. 29. chewing a

snake, of which a most beautiful use is made,

st. 39.

Then from her mouth the gobbet she does take,
The which whyleare she was so greedily
Devouring; even that half-knawen snake,
And at him throws it most despitefully:
The cursed serpent, though she hungrily
Earst chawd thereon, yet was not all so dead,
But that some life remained secretly,

And as he past before withouten dread,

Bit him behind, that long the mark was to be read.

It may be objected, that Spenser drew the thought of Envy throwing her Snake at Arthegall, from Alecto's attack upon Amata.

Huic Dea cæruleis unum de crinibus anguem
Conjicit, inque sinus præcordia ad intima condit*.

But Spenser's application of this thought is surely a stronger effort of invention than the thought itself. The rancour, both of

En. vii. v. 346.

Envy and of her Snake, could not have been expressed by more significant strokes. Although the snake was her constant food, yet she was tempted to part with her only sustenance, while she could render it an instrument of injuring another; and although the snake, by being thus constantly fed upon, was nearly dead, "some life," as he finely says, "remaining secretly," yet its natural malignity enabled it to bite with violence.

B. i. c. v. s. xxxix.

His rash sire began to rend

His haire, and hastie tongue that did offend.

Theseus did not rend his tongue on this occasion. Dr. Jortin is willing to excuse our author for this mistake, by supposing an elleipsis, viz." He began to rend his hair, and [to blame or curse] his se] his tongue."

Spenser is indeed full of elleipses, yet he has

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seldom been guilty of one so hard as this. I should therefore think, that this passage ought not to be referred to our author's ellepses, but to that fault which he so often commits, the misrepresentation of ancient story. Besides, the words "that did offend," joined with "hastie tongue," seem to be given by the poet as an express reason why he rent it.

B. i. c. vi. s. xiv.

Sylvanus is here introduced

His weake steps governing,

And aged limbes on cypresse stadle stout.

I do not remember that Sylvanus is any where described as infirm with old age. Neither would the young cypress tree which he carried in his hand, a sapling, or small plant torn up by the root, have served for this use. Virgiladdresses him—

Teneram ab radice ferens, Sylvane, cupressum*.

B. i. c. vii. s. xvii.

The renowned snake

Which great Alcides in Stremona slew,
Long-fostered in the filth of Lerna lake.

Hercules slew the hydra in the lake of Lerna, between the Mycena and Argos. Stremona is no where to be found, which he probably put for Strymon, a river of Macedonia, in the confines of Thrace. But to read Strymon here, would no more agree with the history than the metre.

B. ii. c. iv. s. xli.

Sonne of Erebus and Night.

Spenser is just to mythology in representing Erebus and Night as married. In another place this address is made to Night.

Black Erebus thy husband is.