SE C T. XLIII.

NOUGH has been opened of the reign of queen Elisa

beth, to afford us an opportunity of forming fome general reflections, tending to establish a full eftimate of the genius of the poetry of that reign; and which, by drawing conclufions from what has been faid, and directing the reader to what he is to expect, will at once be recapitulatory and preparatory. Such a furvey perhaps might have stood with more propriety as an introduction to this reign. But it was first necessary to clear the way, by many circumftantial details, and the regular narration of those particulars, which lay the foundation of principles, and fuggeft matter for difcurfive obfervation. My fentiments on this subject shall therefore compofe the concluding section of the prefent volume.

The age of queen Elifabeth is commonly called the golden age of English poetry. It certainly may not improperly be ftyled the most POETICAL age of these annals.

Among the great features which strike us in the poetry of this period, are the predominancy of fable, of fiction, and fancy, and a predilection for interefting adventures and pathetic events. I will endeavour to affign and explain the cause of this characteristic distinction, which may chiefly be referred to the following principles, fometimes blended, and fometimes operating fingly: The revival and vernacular verfions of the claffics, the importation and tranflation of Italian novels, the visionary reveries or refinements of falfe philofophy, a degree of fuperftition fufficient for the purposes of poetry, the adoption of

the

the machineries of romance, and the frequency and improvements of allegoric exhibition in the popular spectacles.

When the corruptions and impoftures of popery were abolished, the fashion of cultivating the Greek and Roman learning became univerfal: and the literary character was no longer appropriated to scholars by profeffion, but affumed by the nobility and gentry. The ecclefiaftics had found it their intereft to keep the languages of antiquity to themselves, and men were eager to know what had been fo long injuriously concealed. Truth propagates truth, and the mantle of mystery was removed not only from religion but from literature. The laity, who had now been taught to affert their natural privileges, became impatient of the old monopoly of knowledge, and demanded admittance to the ufurpations of the clergy. The general curiofity for new discoveries, heightened either by just or imaginary ideas of the treasures contained in the Greek and Roman writers, excited all persons of leisure and fortune to ftudy the claffics. The pedantry of the present age was the politeness of the last. An accurate comprehenfion of the phrafeology and peculiarities of the antient poets, hiftorians, and orators, which yet feldom went farther than a kind of technical erudition, was an indifpenfable and almost the principal object in the circle of a gentleman's education. Every young lady of fashion was carefully inftituted in claffical letters: and the daughter of a duchefs was taught, not only to diftil ftrong waters, but to conftrue Greek. Among the learned females of high distinction, queen Elifabeth herself was the most confpicuous. Roger Ascham, her preceptor, speaks with rapture of her astonishing progrefs in the Greek nouns ; and declares with no fmall degree of triumph, that during a long refidence at Windfor-caftle, he was accustomed to read more Greek in a day, than " fome prebendary of that church “did Latin, in one week." And although perhaps a princess looking out words in a lexicon, and writing down hard phrases

a SCHOOLEMASTER. p. 19. b. edit. 1589. 4to.

3Q 2

from

from Plutarch's Lives, may be thought at present a more incompatible and extraordinary character, than a canon of Windfor understanding no Greek and but little Latin, yet Elisabeth's pasfion for thefe acquifitions was then natural, and refulted from the genius and habitudes of her age.

The books of antiquity being thus familiarised to the great, every thing was tinctured with antient history and mythology. The heathen gods, although discountenanced by the Calvinists on a suspicion of their tending to cherish and revive a spirit of idolatry, came into general vogue. When the queen paraded through a country-town, almost every pageant was a pantheon. When she paid a vifit at the house of any of her nobility, at entering the hall she was faluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy-chamber by Mercury. Even the pastry-cooks were expert mythologists. At dinner, felect transformations of Ovid's metamorphofes were exhibited in confectionary: and the fplendid iceing of an immense historic plumb-cake, was emboffed with a delicious baffo-relievo of the destruction of Troy. In the afternoon, when the condefcended to walk in the garden, the lake was covered with Tritons and Nereids: the pages of the family were converted into Wood-nymphs who peeped from every bower and the footmen gamboled over the lawns in the figure of Satyrs. I fpeak it without defigning to infinuate any unfavourable fufpicions, but it seems difficult to say, why Elifabeth's virginity should have been made the theme of perpetual and exceffive panegyric: nor does it immediately appear, that there is lefs merit or glory in a married than a, maiden queen. Yet, the next morning, after fleeping in a room hung with the tapestry of the voyage of Eneas, when her majesty hunted in the Park, fhe was met by Diana, who pronouncing our royal prude to be the brightest paragon of unfpotted chastity, invited her to groves free from the intrufions of Acteon. The truth is, fhe was fo profufely flattered for this virtue, because it was esteemed the characteristical ornament of the heroines, as fantastic honour was the chief pride of the champions, of the old barbarous romance.

'It was in conformity to the fentiments of chivalry, which still continued in vogue, that he was celebrated for chastity: the compliment, however, was paid in a claffical allufion.

Queens must be ridiculous when they would appear as women. The fofter attractions of fex vanish on the throne. Elifabeth fought all occafions of being extolled for her beauty, of which indeed in the prime of her youth fhe poffeffed but a small share, whatever might have been her pretenfions to absolute virginity. Notwithstanding her exaggerated habits of dignity and ceremony, and a certain affectation of imperial feverity, fhe did not perceive this ambition of being complimented for beauty, to be an idle and unpardonable levity, totally inconfiftent with her high station and character. As the conquered all nations with her arms, it matters not what were the triumphs of her eyes. Of what confequence was the complexion of the mistress of the world? Not lefs vain of her perfon than her politics, this ftately coquet, the guardian of the proteftant faith, the terror of the fea, the mediatrix of the factions of France, and the fcourge of Spain, was infinitely mortified, if an embassador, at the first audience, did not tell her fhe was the fineft woman in Europe. No negociation fucceeded unlefs fhe was addreffed as a goddess. Encomiaftic harangues drawn from this topic, even on the fuppofition of youth and beauty, were furely fuperfluous, unfuitable, and unworthy; and were offered and received with an equal impropriety. Yet when the rode through the ftreets of the city of Norwich, Cupid, at the command of the mayor and aldermen, advancing from a groupe of gods who had left Olympus to grace the proceffion, gave her a golden arrow, the most effective weapon of his well-furnished quiver, which under the influence of fuch irrefiftible charms was fure to wound the most obdurate heart. "A gift, fays honeft Hollinfhed, "which her majefty, now verging to her fiftieth year, received very thankfullie". In one of the fulfome interludes at

"

CHRON. iii. f. 1297.

court,

court, where she was prefent, the finging-boys of her chapel presented the story of the three rival goddeffes on mount Ida, to which her majefty was ingeniously added as a fourth: and Paris was arraigned in form for adjudging the golden apple to Venus, which was due to the queen alone.

This inundation of claffical pedantry foon infected our poetry. Our writers, already trained in the school of fancy, were fuddenly dazzled with these novel imaginations, and the divinities and heroes of pagan antiquity decorated every compofition. The perpetual allufions to antient fable were often introduced without the leaft regard to propriety. Shakespeare's Mrs. Page, who is not intended in any degree to be a learned or an affected lady, laughing at the cumbersome courtship of her corpulent lover Falstaffe, fays, "I had rather be a giantess and lie under mount "Pelion "." This familiarity with the pagan ftory was not, however, so much owing to the prevailing study of the original authors, as to the numerous English verfions of them, which were confequently made. The tranflations of the claffics, which now employed every pen, gave a currency and a celebrity to thefe fancies, and had the effect of diffufing them among the people. No fooner were they delivered from the pale of the fcholaftic languages, than they acquired a general notoriety. Ovid's metamorphofes juft tranflated by Golding, to inftance no farther, disclosed a new world of fiction, even to the illiterate. As we had now all the antient fables in English, learned allufions, whether in a poem or a pageant, were no longer obfcure and unintelligible to common readers and common fpectators. And here we are led to obferve, that at this restoration of the claffics, we were first struck only with their fabulous inventions. We did not attend to their regularity of defign and juftness of sentiment. A rude age, beginning to read these writers, imitated their extravagancies, not their natural beauties. And these, like other novelties, were pursued to a blameable excess.

MERRY W. A&t ii. Sc. i.