A

POSTSCRIPT.

T the close of this work, I fhall beg leave

to fubjoin an apology, for the manner in which it has been conducted and executed.

I prefume it will be objected, that these remarks would have appeared with greater propriety, connected with Spenfer's text, and arranged according to their respective references; at leaft it may be urged, that fuch a plan would have prevented much unneceffary transcription. But I was diffuaded from this method by two reafons. The firft is, that these OBSERVATIONS, thus reduced to general heads*, form a series of distinct effays on Spenfer, and exhibit a course of fyftematical criticifim on the FAERIE QUEENE. But my principal argument was, that a formal edition of this poem with notes, would have been at once impertinent and fuperfluous; as two publications of Spenfer, under that form, are at prefent expected from the hands of two learned and ingenious critics +. Befides, it was never my defign, to give fo complete and perpetual a comment on every part of our author, as fuch an attempt feemed to require. But while fome

Except in Sections ix. xi.

One of these has fince appeared. paffages

paffages are entirely overlooked, or but fuperficially touched, others will be found to have been difcuffed more at large, and investigated with greater research than fuch an attempt would have

and accuracy, permitted.

As to more particular objections, too many, I am fenfible, muft occur; one of which will probably be, that I have been more diligent in remarking the faults than the beauties of Spenfer. That I have been deficient in encomiums on particular paffages, did not proceed from a want of perceiving or acknowledging beauties; but from a perfuafion, that nothing is more abfurd or useless than the panegyrical comments of thofe, who criticife from the imagination rather than from the judgment, who exert their admiration instead of their reason, and discover more of enthusiasm than difcernment. And this will moft commonly be the cafe of thofe critics, who profefs to point out beauties; because, as they naturally approve them felves to the reader's apprehenfion by their own force, no reason can often be given why they pleafe. The fame cannot always be faid of faults, which I have frequently displayed without referve or palliation.

It was my chief aim, to give a clear and comprehenfive eftimate of the characteristical merits and man

ner,

ner, of this admired, but neglected, poet. For this purpose I have confidered the customs and genius of I have fearched his cotemporary writers,

his age; and examined the books on which the peculiarities of his ftyle, taste, and compofition, are confeffedly founded.

I fear I fhall be cenfured for quoting too many pieces of this fort. But experience has frequently and fatally proved, that the commentator whofe critical enquiries are employed on Spenfer, Jonfon, and the reft of our elder poets, will in vain give specimens of his claffical erudition, unlefs, at the fame time, he brings to his work a mind intimately acquainted with those books, which though now forgotten, were yet in common use and high repute about the time in which his authors refpectively wrote, and which they confequently muft have read. While thefe are unknown, many allufions and many imitations will either remain obfcure, or lofe half their beauty and propriety: "as the figures vanish when the canvas is decayed."

Pope laughs at Theobald for giving us, in his edition of Shakespeare, a fample of

66

All fuch READING as was never read."

But

But these strange and ridiculous books which Theobald quoted, were unluckily the very books which Shakefpeare himself had studied; the knowledge of which enabled that useful editor to explain fo many difficult allufions and obfolete cuftoms in his poet, which otherwife could never have been understood. For want of

this fort of literature, Pope tells us, that the DREADFUL SAGITTARY in Troilus and Creffida, fignifies Teucer, fo celebrated for his fkill in archery. Had he deigned to confult an old hiftory, called the DESTRUCTION OF TROY, a book which was the delight of Shakespeare and of his age, he would have found that this formidable archer, was no other than an imaginary beast, which the grecian army brought against Troy. If Shakespeare is worth reading, he is worth explaining; and the researches used for so valuable and elegant a purpose, merit the thanks of genius and candour, not the fatire of prejudice and ignorance. That labour, which fo effentially contributes to the fervice of true tafte, deferves a more honourable repofitory than The TEMPLE of DULNESS. In the fame ftrain of falfe fatire, Pope obferves with an air of ridicule that Caxton speaks of the Eneid" as a history, as a book hardly known." But the fatirift perhaps

* Dunciad. B. i. 149. Net.

VOL. II.

M m

would

would have expreffed himself with not much more precifion or propriety concerning the Æneid, had he been Caxton's cotemporary. Certainly, had he wrote english poetry in fo unenlightened a period, the world would have loft his refined diction and harmonious verfification, the fortunate effects of better times. Caxton, rude and uncouth as he is, co-operated in the noblest cause he was a very confiderable inftrument in the grand work of introducing literature into his country. In an illiterate and unpolished age he multiplied books, and confequently readers. The books he printed, befides the groffeft barbarisms of ftyle and compofition, are chiefly written on fubjects of little importance and utility; almost all, except the works of Gower and Chaucer, tranflations from the french: yet, such as they were, we enjoy their happy consequences at this day. Science, the progreffive ftate of which fucceeding generations have improved and completed, dates her original from these artless and imperfect efforts.

Mechanical critics will perhaps be disgusted at the liberties I have taken in introducing fo many anecdotes of ancient chivalry. But my fubject required frequent proofs of this fort. Nor could I be perfuaded that fuch enquiries were, in other respects, either useless