have planned, no doubt, an heroic design on the exact claffic model: Or, he might have trimmed between the Gothic and claffic, as his contemporary TASSO did. But the charms of fairy prevailed. And if any think, he was feduced by ARIOSTO into this choice, they fhould confider that it could be only for the fake of his fubject; for the genius and character of these poets was widely different.

UNDER this idea then of a Gothic, not claffical poem, the Faery Queen is to be read and criticized. And on thefe principles, it would not be difficult to unfold its merit in another way than has been hitherto attempted.

MILTON, it is true, preferred the claffic model to the Gothic.

But it was after long hesitation; and his favourite fubject was ARTHUR and his Knights of the round table. On this he had fixed for the greater part of his life. What

led

led him to change his mind was, partly, as I fuppofe, his growing fanaticism; partly, his ambition to take a different rout from SPENSER; but chiefly perhaps, the difcredit into which the stories of chivalry had now fallen by the immortal fatire of CERVANTES. Yet we fee through all his poetry, where his enthufiafm flames out moft, a certain predilection for the legends of chivalry before the fables of Greece.

THIS circumftance, you know, has given offence to the aufterer and more mechanical critics. They are ready to cenfure his judgment, as juvenile and unformed, when they fee him fo delighted, on all occafions, with the Gothic romances. But do these cenfors imagine that MILTON did not perceive the defects of these works, as well as they? No: it was not the compofition of books of chivalry, but the manners defcribed in

them, that took his fancy; as appears from his Allegro

Towred cities please us then
And the bufy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With ftore of ladies, whofe bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.

AND when in the Penferofo he draws, by a fine contrivance, the fame kind of image to footh melancholy which he had before given to excite mirth, he indeed extolls an author, or two, of these romances, as he had before, in general, extolled the fubject of them: but they are authors worthy of his praise; not the writers of Amadis, and Sir Launcelot of the Lake; but Faery SPENSER, and CHAUCER himself, who has left an unfinished story on the Gothic or feudal model.

Or,

Or, call up him that left half-told
The ftory of CAMBUSCAN bold,
Of CAMBALL and of ALGARSIFE,
And who had CANACE to wife
That own'd the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And if ought elfe great bards befide
In fage and folemn tunes have fung
Of turneys and of trophies hung
Of forefts and inchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.

THE conduct then of these two poets (may incline us to think with more respect, than is commonly done of the Gothic manners, I mean as adapted to the ufes of the greater poetry.

I SHALL add nothing to what I before obferved of SHAKESPEAR, becaufe the fublimity (the divinity, let it be, if nothing else will ferve) of his genius. kept no certain rout, but rambled at hazard into all the regions of human

life

life and manners. So that we can hardly fay what he preferred, or what he rejected, on full deliberation. Yet one thing is clear, that even he is greater when he uses Gothic manners and machinery, than when he employs claffical: which brings us again to the fame point, that the former have, by their nature and genius, the advantage of the latter in producing the fublime.

LETTER VIII.

I SPOKE " of criticizing SPENSER'S

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poem, under the idea, not of a claf"fical, but Gothic compofition."

It is certain much light might be thrown on that fingular work, were an able critic to confider it in this view. For inftance, he might go fome way towards explaining, perhaps juftifying, the general plan and conduct of the Faery Queen, which, to claffical readers, has appeared indefenfible.