Novi quas dixisti; nominare autem nolo.

Below, we have the same superstition concerning Hecate

And threatned unto him the dreaded name
Of Hecate.

st. 3.

But it would perhaps be difficult to produce any ancient evidence, either that Hecate's name was feared in general, or that Morpheus particularly, was afraid of uttering or hearing it. Our author, with great force of fancy, feigns such another circumstance as this concerning Merlin.

The fiends do quake, when any him to them does name.

3. 3. 11.

Though perhaps this is not more expressive of Merlin's diabolical power, than what some of the runic historians mention of a

Swedish enchanter, viz. That he could blunt the edge of the weapons of his enemies only by looking at them, and that he could make hell a light place.

B. i. c. iv. s. xxx.

He is describing Envy.

Still did chaw,

Between his cankred teeth a venomous toad,
That all the poison ran about his jaw.

Ovid feigns* that Envy was found eating the flesh of vipers, a fiction not much unlike Spenser's picture. But our author has heightened this circumstance to a most disgusting decree; for he adds, that the poison ran about his jaw. This is perhaps one of the most loathsome images which Spenser has given us; though he paints very strongly, 1. 1. 20.

* Met. ii. v. 76.

f

She spewd out of her filthy maw,

A flood of poison horrible and black;

Full of great lumps of flesh and gobbets raw,
Which stunk so vilely, that it forc'd him slack
His grasping hold.

As also in the discovery of Duessa, 1. 8. 47: 48. He is likewise very indelicate, where he speaks of Serena's wounds.

For now her wounds corruption 'gan to breed.

And to forbear disagreeable citations, see 7. 7. 31. and 7. 7. 40. The truth is, the strength of our author's imagination could not be suppressed on any subject; and, in some measure, it is owing to the fulness of his stanza, and the reiteration of his rhymes, that he describes these offensive objects minutely.

But to return to his Envy. This personage is again introduced, 5. 12. 29. chewing a

snake, of which a most beautiful use is made,

st. 39.

Then from her mouth the gobbet she does take,
The which whyleare she was so greedily
Devouring; even that half-knawen snake,
And at him throws it most despitefully :
The cursed serpent, though she hungrily
Earst chawd thereon, yet was not all so dead,
But that some life remained secretly,

And as he past before withouten dread,

Bit him behind, that long the mark was to be read.

It may be objected, that Spenser drew the thought of Envy throwing her Snake at Arthegall, from Alecto's attack upon Amata.

Huic Dea cæruleis unum de crinibus anguem
Conjicit, inque sinus præcordia ad intima condit*.

But Spenser's application of this thought is surely a stronger effort of invention than the thought itself. The rancour, both of

* En. vii. v. 346.

Envy and of her Snake, could not have been expressed by more significant strokes. Although the snake was her constant food, yet she was tempted to part with her only sustenance, while she could render it an instrument of injuring another; and although the snake, by being thus constantly fed upon, was nearly dead, "some life," as he finely says, "remaining secretly," yet its natural malignity enabled it to bite with violence.

B. i. c. v. s. xxxix.

His rash sire began to rend

His haire, and hastie tongue that did offend.

Theseus did not rend his tongue on this occasion. Dr. Jortin is willing to excuse our author for this mistake, by supposing an elleipsis, viz.-" He began to rend his hair, and [to blame or curse] his tongue.' Spenser is indeed full of elleipses, yet he has

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