I have before given a fketch of the introduction of claffical ftories, in the fplendid fhow exhibited at the coronation of queen Anne Boleyn. But that is a rare and a premature instance and the pagan fictions are there complicated with the barbarisms of the catholic worship, and the doctrines of scholaftic theology. Claffical learning was not then fo widely fpread, either by study or translation, as to bring these learned fpectacles into fashion, to frame them with fufficient fkill, and to present them with propriety. Another capital fource of the poetry peculiar to this period, confifted in the numerous tranflations of Italian tales into English. These narratives, not dealing altogether in romantic inventions, but in real life and manners, and in artful arrangements of fictitious yet probable events, afforded a new gratification to a people which yet retained their antient relish for taletelling, and became the fashionable amusement of all who profeffed to read for pleasure. They gave rife to innumerable plays and poems, which would not otherwife have existed; and turned the thoughts of our writers to new inventions of the fame kind. Before these books became common, affecting fituations, the combination of incident, and the pathos of catastrophe, were almost unknown. Distress, especially that arifing from the con flicts of the tender paffion, had not yet been fhewn in its most interesting forms. It was hence our poets, particularly the dramatic, borrowed ideas of a legitimate plot, and the complication of facts neceffary to constitute a story either of the comic or tragic fpecies. In proportion as knowledge encreased, genius had wanted fubjects and materials. These pieces ufurped the place of legends and chronicles. And although the old historical fongs of the minstrels contained much bold adventure, heroic enterprise, and ftrong touches of rude delineation, yet they failed in that multiplication and difpofition of circumstances, and in that defcription of characters and events approaching nearer to truth and reality, which were demanded by a more difcerning difcerning and curious age. Even the rugged features of the original Gothic romance were foftened by this fort of reading: and the Italian paftoral, yet with fome mixture of the kind of incidents described in Heliodorus's Ethiopic hiftory now newly tranflated, was engrafted on the feudal manners in Sydney's ARCADIA. But the reformation had not yet destroyed every delufion, nor difinchanted all the ftrong holds of fuperftition. A few dim characters were yet legible in the mouldering creed of tradition. Every goblin of ignorance did not vanish at the first glimmerings of the morning of fcience. Reason fuffered a few demons still to linger, which the chose to retain in her service under the guidance of poetry. Men believed, or were willing to believe, that spirits were yet hovering around, who brought with them airs from heaven, or blafts from hell, that the ghost was duely released from his prison of torment at the found of the curfue, and that fairies imprinted myfterious circles on the turf by moonlight. Much of this credulity was even confecrated by the name of science and profound speculation. Profpero had not yet broken and buried his ftaff, nor drowned his book deeper than did ever plummet found. It was now that the alchymift, and the judicial aftrologer, conducted his occult operations by the potent intercourse of fome preternatural being, who came obfequious to his call, and was bound to accomplish his feverest services, under certain conditions, and for a limited duration of time. It was actually one of the pretended feats of these fantastic philofophers, to evoke the queen of the Fairies in the folitude of a gloomy grove, who, preceded by a fudden rustling of the leaves, appeared in robes of transcendent luftre. The Shakespeare of a more instructed and polished age, would not have given us a magician darkening the fun at noon, the fabbath of the witches, and the cauldron of incantation. Lilly's LIFE, p. 151. Undoubtedly Undoubtedly most of these notions were credited and entertained in a much higher degree, in the preceding periods. But the arts of composition had not then made a fufficient progress, nor would the poets of those periods have managed them with so much address and judgement. We were now arrived at that point, when the national credulity, chaftened by reason, had produced a fort of civilized superstition, and left a set of traditions, fanciful enough for poetic decoration, and yet not too violent and chimerical for common fenfe. Hobbes, although no friend to this doctrine, obferves happily, "In a good poem "both judgement and fancy are required; but the fancy must "be more eminent, because they please for the EXTRAVAGANCY, but ought not to displease by INDISCRETION"." 66 In the mean time the Gothic romance, although somewhat fhook by the claffical fictions, and by the tales of Boccace and Bandello, still maintained its ground: and the daring machineries of giants, dragons, and inchanted caftles, borrowed from the magic ftorehouse of Boiardo, Ariofto, and Taffo, began to be employed by the epic muse. These ornaments have been cenfured by the bigotry of precife and fervile critics, as abounding in whimsical abfurdities, and as unwarrantable deviations from the practice of Homer and Virgil. The author of AN ENQUIRY INTO THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF HOMER is willing to allow a fertility of genius, and a felicity of expreffion, to Taffo and Ariosto; but at the fame time complains, that, "quitting "life, they betook themselves to aerial beings and Utopian "characters, and filled their works with Charms and Visions, "the modern Supplements of the Marvellous and Sublime. The "best poets copy nature, and give it fuch as they find it. When "once they lose fight of this, they write falfe, be their talents "ever so great '." But what fhall we fay of those Utopians, the Cyclopes and the Leftrigons in the Odyffey? The hippogrif of Ariosto may be oppofed to the harpies of Virgil. If leaves LEVIATH, Part i. ch. viii. f SECT. V. p. 69. VOL. III. 3 R are are turned into ships in the Orlando, nymphs are transformed into ships in the Eneid. Cacus is a more unnatural favage than Caliban. Nor am I convinced, that the imagery of Ifmeno's necromantic foreft in the Gierufalemme Liberata, guarded by walls and battlements of fire, is lefs marvellous and fublime, than the leap of Juno's horfes in the Iliad, celebrated by Longinus for its fingular magnificence and dignity. On the principles of this critic, Voltaire's Henriad may be placed at the head of the modern epic. But I forbear to anticipate my opinion of a system, which will more properly be confidered, when I come to speak of Spenfer. I muft, however, obferve here, that the Gothic and pagan fictions were now frequently blended and incorporated. The Lady of the Lake floated in the fuite of Neptune before queen Elifabeth at Kenilworth, Ariel affumes the semblance of a fea-nymph, and Hecate, by an easy association, conducts the rites of the weird fifters in Macbeth. Allegory had been derived from the religious dramas into our civil fpectacles. The mafques and pageantries of the age of Elifabeth were not only furnished by the heathen divinities, but often by the virtues and vices imperfonated, fignificantly decorated, accurately distinguished by their proper types, and represented by living actors. The antient fymbolical fhews of this fort began now to lofe their old barbarism and a mixture of religion, and to affume a degree of poetical elegance and precision. Nor was it only in the conformation of particular figures that much fancy was fhewn, but in the contexture of fome of the fables or devices prefented by groupes of ideal perfonages. These exhibitions quickened creative invention, and reflected back on poetry what poetry had given. From their familiarity and public nature, they formed a national taste for allegory; and the allegorical poets were now writing to the people. Even romance was turned into this channel. In the Fairy Queen, allegory is wrought upon chivalry, and the feats and figments of Arthur's round, table * ILIAD, V. 770. Longin. 5. ix. are are moralifed. The virtues of magnificence and chastity are here personified: but they are imaged with the forms, and under the agency, of romantic knights and damfels. What was an afterthought in Tafso, appears to have been Spenfer's premeditated and primary defign. In the mean time, we must not confound these moral combatants of the Fairy Queen with some of its other embodied abstractions, which are purely and profeffedly allegorical. It may here be added, that only a few critical treatises, and but one ART OF POETRY, were now written. Sentiments and images were not abfolutely determined by the canons of compofition: nor was genius awed by the consciousness of a future and final arraignment at the tribunal of taste. A certain dignity of inattention to niceties is now vifible in our writers. Without too closely consulting a criterion of correctness, every man indulged his own capriciousness of invention. The poet's appeal was chiefly to his own voluntary feelings, his own immediate and peculiar mode of conception. And this freedom of thought was often expreffed in an undisguised frankness of diction. A circumftance, by the way, that greatly contributed to give the flowing modulation which now marked the measures of our poets, and which foon degenerated into the oppofite extreme of diffonance and afperity. Selection and discrimination were often overlooked. Shakespeare wandered in pursuit of universal nature. The glancings of his eye are from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. We behold him breaking the barriers of imaginary method. In the fame scene, he defcends from his meridian of the noblest tragic fublimity, to puns and quibbles, to the meanest merriments of a plebeian farce. In the midst of his dignity, he resembles his own Richard the second, the skipping king, who fometimes discarding the state of a monarch, Mingled his royalty with carping fools'. FIRST P. HENRY iv. A& iii. Sc. ii. 3 R 2 He |