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B. ii. c. vi. f. viii.

One sweet drop of fenfuall delight.

Lucretius, the warmeft of the roman poets, has given us this metaphor.

Dulcedinis in cor

Stillavit gutta".

B. ii. c. vi. f. xxviii.

Thou RECREANT knight,

RECREANT knight, is a term of romance. Thus in MORTE ARTHUR. "Then faid the knight to "the king, thou art in my daunger whether me lyft "to fave thee or to fley thee; and but thou yeeld "thee as overcome and RECREANT, thou shalt dye. "As for death, faid king Arthur, welcome be it "when it cometh; but as to yeeld me to thee as RECREANT, &c t."

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SPETT seems antiently to have more fimply fignified DISPERSE, without the low idea which we at present affix to it. Thus Milton, in Comus.

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When the dragon woom

Of stygian darkness SPETTS her thickest gloom.

And Drayton, in the Barons Wars, of an exhalation,

SPETTETH his lightening forth*.

B. i. c. viii. f. v.

A description of an angel.

Befide his head there fate a faire young man
Of wondrous beauty, and of freshest yeares,
Whofe tender bud to bloffom new began,
And flourish faire above his equall peares;
His fnowy front, curled with golden heares,
Like Phoebus face adorn'd with funny rayes,
Divinely fhone; and two fharp-winged fheares
Decked with diverse plumes like painted jayes,
Were fixed at his backe, to cut his ayerie wayes.

Milton †, in his description of Satan under the form of a stripling-cherub, has highly improved upon Spenfer's angel, and Taffo's Gabriel ‡, both which he feems to have had in his eye, as well as in his Raphael S. Many authors, before Milton, have defcribed angels, in which they have infifted only upon the graces of youth and beauty. But it must be grant

# B, 2. ft, 35.

+ Par, Loft. 3. 636.
§ 5. 276,

C. 1. f. 13.

ed,

ed, that our great countryman was the first that ever attempted to give, with becoming majesty, the idea of an ARMED ANGEL. He, probably, received fome hints, in this respect, from paintings, which he had feen in Italy; particularly from one by GUIDO, where Michael, clad in celeftial panoply, triumphs over Satan chained.

B. ii. c. x. f. vii.

Speaking of Albion,

But farre in land a salvage nation dwelt

Of hideous giants.

This puts me in mind of Geoffry of Monmouth's account of the original state of Albion. "Erat tunc

nomen infula Albion, quæ a nemine nifi a PAUCIS "GIGANTIBUS inhabitabatur.” A few giants in that hiftorian's opinion were but of little confideration.

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For on his fhield as thick as ftormy fhow'r
Their ftroakes did raine.

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Which two laft inftances are more like Virgil's ferreus imber.

B. ii. c. xi. f. xxxv.

Thereby there lay

An huge great ftone which stood upon one end,
And had not been removed many a day.

xxxvi.

The fame he fnatcht, and with exceeding fway
Threw at his foe.

Among other inftances of the extraordinary strength exerted by antient heroes in lifting huge ftones, as defcribed by the antient poets, I think the following in Apollonius has never been alleged by the commentators. Jafon crushes the growing warriors with a prodigious ftone.

Λαζε ο

Λαζελο δ' εκ πεδίοιο μεγαν περιηγεα πέτρον,
Δεινον ενυαλιο σολον Αρεω 8 κε μιν ανδρες
Αιζηοι πίσυρες γαιης απο τυλθον αειραν.

Τον β' ανα χειρα λαβων μαλα τηλόθεν εμβαλε μέσσοις
Αΐξας ".

Arripit e campo magnum et rotundum faxum,
Mirum Martis Gradivi difcum; non ipfum viri
Juvenes quatuor ne paulum quidem terra elevaffent;
Id fumptum in manibus valde procul in medios abjecit
Infiliens.

But the more delicate critics ought to remember, that Jason was affifted in this miraculous effort by the enchantments of Medea.

B. ii. c. xii. f. lx.

And in the midft of all a fountaine flood.

Hardly any thing is defcribed with greater pomp and magnificence than artificial fountains in romance. See a glorious one in Ariosto, 42, 91.

Fountains were a common ornament of gardens in Spenfer's age; and were often finely decorated with ftatues, devices, and other coftly furniture, like this in the Bowre of Bliffe. I think, they are mentioned,

Agyov. b. 3. 1364.

as

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