With this hint given, who can help thinking of Sidney's Arcadia, when he finds Sir Calidore mifpending his time among the Shepherds? And when this Knight of Courtefy meets in his paftoral retirement with Colin Clout, and by his abrupt appearance drives away the rural Nymphs and Graces, which makes the fhepherd, "for fell defpight "Of that displeasure, break his bag-pipe quite :"— Do not all these circumstances, agreeably to the tenor of this Poem, allude to our poet's leaving the country, and the rural mufe, at Sir Philip Sidney's requeft? I make no doubt myself, but the Country Lafs defcribed in C. x. ft. 25, 26, 27, is the fame as defcribed in his Sonnets, lxi. &c. Her name was Elizabeth, as he tells us in Sonnet lxxiv. And he was married to her after his unfuccefsful love of the fair Rofalind, who feems imaged in that Wondrous Fair (as her name imports) who is fo juftly punished for love's difdain in Canto vii. I have mentioned in the notes that Belgard Castle, in Canto xii, feems from its very name to point out Belvoir Caftle: If this is granted, Sir Bellamoure must be the noble Lord of the Castle, who married into the royal houfe of York: and this feems hinted at in Canto xii. ft. 4. Another of this noble family likewife married the daughter of Sir Philip Sidney: but how far the story told of Paftorella, who found her parents in Belvoir Castle, may allude to this alliance, I neither affirm nor deny. In these kind of historical allufions Spenfer ufually perplexes the fubject; he leads you on, and then defignedly misleads you: for he is writing a Fairy Poem, not giving you the detail of an hiftorian. It seems to me that our poet makes ufe of the fame perplexing manner in hinting at the calumnious tale, then in every good woman's mouth, told of a certain Lady at Court, no less than a maid of honour to queen Elizabeth, and a daughter of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, who had been too free of her favours before marriage to Sir Walter Raleigh This Lady he married afterwards, and she made him the most quiet, the most serene, and beft of wives. But the reader will not fail to apply this story, when he finds Serena and Timias (in whom all along, and almost in every circumftance is imaged Sir Walter Raleigh,) both carried to the Hermit's cell, to be cured of their fore maladies that they had contracted by the bite of Calumny and Scandal. This story too he will apply, when he finds Timias under the difcipline of Difdain and Scorn, in Canto vii, and viii. The Salvage Man characterised in Canto iv. ft. 2, and in Canto v. ft. 2, and 41, was intended to be fhewn in a new light in fome 66 other part of this Poem, now left unfinished; and this Salvage perhaps reprefents, by way of type, the heir of Lord Savage mentioned by Spenfer in his View of Ireland; now (he fays) a poor gentleman of very mean condition, yet dwelling in the Ardes." And the epifode of the Infant faved from a bear, and delivered to the wife of Sir Bruin to be brought up as their fon, might allude to the noble Irish family of the Macmahons, defcended from the Fitz-urfulas. Thefe kind of types and fymbols, and historical allufions, the English reader will not fail to apply to many Parts of this Poem, when he confiders what Spenfer himself tells us, in his Introduction to B. ii. ft. 4, that there are "certain SIGNS by which FAIRY. LOND may be found." Hence the Poem itself, by this pleafing mask, partakes of the nature of fable, mystery, and allegory; not only in its moral representations of virtues and vices, and in what relates to nature and natural philofophy, but likewise in its history. UPTON. OF MUTABILITIE: WHICH, BOTH FOR FORME AND MATTER, Appeare to be parcell of fome following Booke of THE FAERIE QUEENE, UNDER THE LEGEND OF CONSTANCIE. CANTO VI. Proud Change (not pleafd in mortall things I. WHAT man that fees the ever-whirling wheele Of Change, the which all mortall things doth fway, But that thereby doth find, and plainly feele, How Mutability in them doth play Her cruell fports to many mens decay? Which that to all may better yet appeare, I will rehearse, that whylome I heard fay, How fhe at first herselfe began to reare Gainst all the gods, and th' empire fought from them to beare. I. 9. note, F. Q. iii. iii. 45. is used for gain, win. to beare.] See the But I now think beare, in both places, See ft. 4. CHURCH. But firft, here falleth fitteft to unfold Yet many of their stemme long after did furvive : III. And many of them afterwards obtain'd To gods and men, as fhe them lift divide; II. 5. She was, &c.] Spenfer here makes Hecate the daughter of the Titans. Authors differ about the parentage of Hecate. Onomacritus calls her, Argon. v. 975. Taplapowass Exaln. The Titans were indeed thrown into Tartarus; but it could not be concluded from thence that the Titans were Hecate's parents; although this, I prefume, is the beft argument our author could have offered for his genealogy. In this ftanza Bellona is likewife feigned to be the offspring of the Titans; but Bellona was the fifter of Mars, who was fon of Jupiter and Juno; or, as Ovid reports, of Juno alone. T. WARTON. III. 3. As Hecate, &c.] Hefiod, Theog. 411. Εκάτην τέκε, τὴν περὶ πάλων Ζεὺς Κρονίδης τίμησε· πόρεν δέ οἱ ἀγλαά δώρα, Μοῖραν ἔχειν γαίης κ. τ. λ. JORTIN. |