flattery, though it turned not much to his account. Had he lived to finish his poem, in the six remaining legends, it had certainly been more of a piece; but could not have been perfect, because the model was not true. But Prince Arthur, or his chief patron Sir Philip Sydney, whom he intended to make happy by the marriage of his Gloriana, dying before him, deprived the poet both of means and spirit to accomplish his design. For the rest, his

• From the time this Essay was written, to the present day, this representation has been given again and again, in various books of biography and criticism; and among others, Fenton has declared himself entirely of Dryden's opinion, that, on the death of Sir Philip Sydney, "Spencer was deprived of means and spirit to accomplish his design," in consequence of which his FAERY QUEEN was left imperfect and unfinished. This notion, for which there is no ground whatsoever, (as I shall elsewhere more fully shew,) proves how very slight and superficial the inquiries were, which the poets of the last century and the beginning of the present, made concerning their predecessors; of which Rowe's Life of Shakspeare, and Hughes's Life of Spencer, as well as the present observation of Dryden, furnish abundant evidence.

Before Spencer went to Ireland with Lord Grey (1580) we learn from one of his letters to Gabriel Harvey, that the plan of THE FAERY QUEEN was formed, and some part of it composed. In a Dialogue written by his friend Lodowick Bryskett, which appears to have been composed some time between 1584 and 1589, and in which Spencer is introduced as a speaker, the poem is spoken of as then in hand. In 1589 he brought three books of it to 'London, which were published in 1590-91. In 1592 or 1593, he became acquainted with the lady, whom he afterwards

obsolete language,' and the ill choice of his stanza, are faults but of the second magnitude; for, not

(f. June 11, 1594,) married, and addressed several sonnets to her, which were published in 1595. In this interval he appears to have written the fourth, fifth, and sixth books of his great poem; and from his 80th Sonnet, apparently written in 1594, we find that he had then completed only six BOOKS, and was desirous of rest after having executed so long and laborious a task. In that or the next year he came to England, and printed the last three books, which were published in 1596, in which year he also wrote some small poems in honour of his patrons, and his most valuable "View of the State of Ireland." Thus all his time has been accounted for, except about twenty months, from the beginning of 1597, to September 1598; in which period he probably wrote some detached portions of the remaining six books, of which the Cantos on MUTABILITY are a proof. In October 1598, on Tyrone's rebellion breaking out, his Castle was plundered, one of his children murdered, and he and his wife escaped with difficulty, and came in great distress to London, where he died, between the 1st of January, and the 25th of March, 1598-9; probably in the forty-fifth year of his age.

Sir Philip Sydney, we know, died October 16, 1586; but so far is it from being true that his death deprived Spencer of spirit to complete his work, that it is almost certain much the greater part of it was written between that year and 1595; and it is equally untrue, that on the loss of that patron, he was deprived of those means which would have rendered him independent, and enabled him to devote his hours to literary pursuits: for a very few months before that event, he obtained the grant of the Castle of Kilcolman, in the county of Corke, with 3000 acres of land annexed to it; and though he was unsupported by

withstanding the first, he is still intelligible, at least after a little practice; and for the last, he is

such influence, as Sydney might have had at court, above five years afterwards, Feb. 25, 1590-91, (as I discovered a few years ago in the Rolls-Chapel,) his talents were rewarded with a pension of fifty pounds a year, during his life, (in addition to the estate which he then possessed) which, all circumstances being considered, was fully equal to 200l. a year at present. From this statement, I conceive, it may justly be inferred, that his own immature death (to use Camden's words in his Account of the Monuments in Westminster Abbey,) was the real cause of his poem's not being completed; but from whatever it may have arisen, it is manifest that the death of Sydney was not the circumstance which deprived the world of the last six books of THE FAERY QUEEN.

5 Because Ben Jonson, in his DISCOVERIES, objected to Spencer's obsolete language, with a reference undoubtedly to his PASTORALS, an indiscriminate charge, on this ground, has been brought against all his works; for which I conceive there is very little foundation. What Jonson has said of him, that, " in affecting the ancients, he wrote no language," may be applied with much more truth to Jonson's own compositions, than to those of Spencer. The language of THE FAERY QUEEN was the poetical language of the age in which he lived; and, however obsolete it might appear to Dryden, was, I conceive, perfectly intelligible to every reader of poetry in the time of Queen Elizabeth, though THE SHEPHEARDS CALENDER was not even then understood without a commentary.

Pope has, in this respect, too implicitly followed our

author:

Spencer himself affects the obsolete,

"And Sydney's verse halts ill on Roman feet!"

the more to be admired, that labouring under such a difficulty, his verses are so numerous, so various, and so harmonious, that only Virgil, whom he professedly imitated, has surpassed him, among the Romans; and only Mr. Waller among the English.

6

As for Mr. Milton, whom we all admire with so much justice, his subject is not that of an heroick poem, properly so called. His design is the losing of our happiness; his event is not prosperous, like that of all other epick works; his heavenly machines are many, and his human persons are but two. But I will not take Mr. Rymer's work out of his hands: he has promised the world a critique on that author; wherein, though he will not allow his poem for heroick, I hope he will grant us, that his thoughts are elevated, his words sounding, and that no man has so happily copied the manner of Homer, or so copiously translated his Grecisms, and the Latin elegancies of Virgil. It is true, he runs into a flat of thought, sometimes for a hundred lines together, but it is when he has got into a track of scripture. His antiquated words were his choice, not his necessity: for therein he imitated Spencer, as Spencer did Chaucer. And

In a note, however, on the former line, he qualifies the assertion, by saying-" Particularly in his Shepherd's Calendar," where he imitated the unequal measures, as well as the language, of Chaucer."

6 This promise Rymer made at the end of his Essay on the Tragedies of the last Age; but he did not fulfil it. See val. i. p. 398.

though, perhaps, the love of their masters may have transported both too far, in the frequent use of them, yet in my opinion obsolete words may then be laudably revived, when either they are more sounding or more significant than those in practice; and when their obscurity is taken away, by joining other words to them, which clear the sense; according to the rule of Horace, for the admission of new words.' But in both cases, a moderation

The passage referred to, (DE ARTE POET. 47,) has been much controverted. In vol. i. p. 242, our author has interpreted it very differently, contending that Horace meant to say that language might be improved "by applying received words to a new fignification;" or in other words by using them metaphorically. Dacier and Sanadon suppose callida junctura to mean-happily compounding, or putting together two words into one. Other interpreters suppose that this expression refers to the arrangement of words in the sentence. Dr. Hurd is of opinion that it means— artful management; and Dr. Beattie proposes a different interpretation from any that have been mentioned."Horace (says that gentleman) is speaking, not of figurative language, but of new words. Both these interpretations [those above stated, before that of Dr. Hurd,] suppose that the words are to be conftrued according to this order: Dixeris egregie, si callida junctura reddiderit notum verbum novum.-The best of all our poet's interpretors, Dr. Hurd, construes the passage in the same manner, and explains it thus: Instead of framing new words, I recommend to you any kind of artful management, by which you may be able to give a new air and cast to old ones.' And this explication he illustrates most ingeniously by a variety of examples, that throw great