Ivi 



RISE AND PROGRESS 



cal poem on the unfortunate characters of Eng- 

 lish history, which, if it borrowed unreservedly 

 from Virgil, Dante, and Boccacio, was at the 

 same time instrumental in suggesting the rudi- 

 ments of his manner, style, and metre, to the 

 author of the Fairy Queen. But now bursts upon 

 us the AGE OK ELIZABETH ; * if that glorious 

 period must still take its designation from an 

 able mistress of police perhaps a great sove- 

 reign, but certainly a heartless, tasteless woman, 

 whose best public virtues were private vices ; who 

 prated of humanity, while she committed mur- 

 der ; and pretended to love letters, while she 

 neglected their brightest ornaments. Call it 

 rather the age of Spenser ; the age of Hooker ; 

 the age of SHAKSPKARE, greatest of earthly 

 names. It is true that Elizabeth encouraged 

 learning : or rather, though she herself under- 

 stood and cherished only the triflings of pedantry, 

 yet even this was productive of good in a country, 

 where the reception of the ancient classics had 

 been so slow and sullen that Erasmus f himself 

 had failed, at the two Universities, to make an 

 impression in their favour. Nor can it be 

 denied that by upholding, from whatever mo- 

 tives, the Protestant religion, Elizabeth guarded 

 a mainspring of free, excursive thought, whose 

 impulse was keenly felt in literature. And, 

 by authorizing that version of the Scriptures, 

 which became, under her successor, the basis 

 of our present English Bible, she both sup- 

 plied, according to a philosophic historian,:}: " the 

 richest store-house of the native beauties of 

 our ancient tongue," and, in the emphatic words 

 of one, who always criticises well when he knows 

 his subject,^ " gave a mind to her people." 

 But the grand workings of that mind were from 

 below ; not stimulated so much by royal or noble 

 patronage, as by the innate and salient vigour 

 of the middle classes. Their healthy appetite 

 was now no longer to be satisfied by sonnets like 

 Surrey's ; nor by buffooneries like Borde's ; || nor 

 by epigrams like Hey wood's, though his " merri- 

 ments moved even the rigid muscles of Queen 

 Mary ;" ^[ nor by mere inductions like Sack- 

 ville's.** While on the one hand intellect was 

 roused and information spread, and on the other 

 hand enough of romance and superstition for the 

 purposes of fancy still remained, to these there 

 was superadded the mental aliment derived from 

 translations of the classics, from the Italian 

 literature, and that of other modern countries ; 



A. D. 15581603. + A. D. 14671536. 



1 Mackintosh. Hazlitt. || A. D. 1542. 



* Warton's History of English Poetry, III. 371. 

 * Induction to the Mirrourfor Magistrate!. 



and all together broke into a flame in the poetry 

 of SPENSBI; * and of SHAKSPEARE. f 



Not to speak of the former as a pastoral poet, 

 nor with reference to any work except the Fairy 

 Queen, we cannot concede to a German critic $ 

 that a comparison of this with the Orlando Fu- 

 rioso, which it resembles in many both of its 

 faults and beauties, would be prejudicial to 

 Spenser. Granting the Italian poem to be a 

 labyrinth of perpetual vicissitude, is it fair to 

 call the English one merely " a well laid-out 

 garden of tiresome sameness ?" This seems an 

 inconsistent mode of characterising that which is 

 admitted to be the fruit of " an inexhaustible 

 fancy," and which is, indeed, full of such variety 

 as necessarily flows from great inventive and 

 descriptive powers. As for the style of Spenser, 

 his slightest effort appears ever sufficient to make 

 it all alive with images and words " discolour'd 

 diversely," 



" Like to an almond-tree y-mounted high 



On top of green Selenis all alone, 

 With blossoms brave bedecked daintily ; 

 Her tender locks do tremble every one 

 At every little breath that under heav'n is blown." 



And the wide compass of his music, too, must be 

 described in some of its own exquisite modula- 

 tions ; for, in that music 



" The silver-sounding instruments did meet 

 With the base murmur of the water's fall ; 



The water's fall, with difference discreet, 



Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ; 

 The gentle warbling wind low answered to all." 



On Shakspeare what volumes have been written : 

 what volumes could be written still ! But would 

 it not be absurd to expatiate here upon the dis- 

 tinctions between the classical and the romantic 

 drama, when, after all, these lie so much in the 

 externals and accidents of poetry, so little in its 

 essence, that there is not one vital principle of 

 Aristotle's which may not be illustrated out of 

 Shakspeare ? Would it not be absurd to debate 

 the comparative excellence of Shakspeare in 

 Tragedy and Comedy, when the recollection of 

 Othello rushes on the mind in company with that 

 of Falstaff"; or when we reflect on the ever- 

 mingling threads of mortal destiny, made up of 

 contrasts, that are so faithfully interwoven in the 

 tissue of his plays? Everything that a poet 

 needs to know, he knew : everything that a dra- 

 matist should imitate, he imitated. Not set by 

 his side, but shrined within his bosom, was that 

 fabled daemon, at the waving of whose wand 

 houses were unroofed, breasts uncovered, remotest 



A. D. 15531598. + A. D. 15641616. 



Eichhorn: Getchickte der Lilteratur, IV. 611. 



