Vol. 9. Prologue to the Coronation. “A WOMAN, once, in a Coronation, may With pardon speak the Prologue, give as free A welcome to the theatre, as he That with a little beard, a long black cloak, With a starch'd face and supple leg, hath spoke Before the play the twelve month." P. 99. "You must not look for down beds here. Yet there be many lightsome cool Star chambers, Open to every sweet air."-Sea Voyage. Vol. 10. P. 81. Two lines which are used as an epitaph in country churchyards: "The world's a city full of straying streets, And death's the market-place where each one meets." 129. "The most remarkable point in which kings differ From private men, is, that they not alone The stage read wholesome lectures to kings, even in days of arbitrary principles. 365. Beaumont's letters to Ben Jonson, from the country. Gifford, for the sake of extolling the Sad Shepherd, abuses the Faithful Shepherdess.1 -B. J. vol. 6, p. 306. Waller. MARGARET Fox writes thus to Waller: "London, 25th of 4th Month, 1698. "Dear Friend, "I should have been glad to have seen 1 There were three works in my younger days I used to sigh for the completion of :-The Fasti of Ovid, the Story of Cambuscan Bold, and The Faithful Shepherdess.-J. W. W. thee before I had returned to my outward habitation; understanding that thou hast made choice of that blessed truth that we bear witness to, I cannot but say, it is well that thou hast chosen the better part, which, if thou abide in and obey, it will never be taken from thee. I perceive by some letters from thee, which I have heard read, that there is a work of God begun in thy inward man, where He works in his people the new creation in Christ Jesus, which is unto righteousness, holiness, and purity."A brief Collection of remarkable Passages and Occurrences relating to the Birth, Education, Life, Conversion, Travels, Services, and Sufferings of that ancient, eminent, and faithful Servant of the Lord, Margaret Fell, but by her second Marriage Margaret Fox. 1710, 8vo. p. 532. SAMUEL BISHOP, Poetical Works. 1796. P. xvii. TOWNLEY, under master at M. Taylor's, when Bishop was on the upper form, was the author of "High Life below Stairs." Garrick had so high an opinion of him, that he submitted all his own works to his correction. xxiii. Woodward, a schoolfellow of Bishop's, and assisted by him in composing "the Seasons," which was designed for the stage, and to have been exhibited in a style of splendour at that time unexampled. Woodward had two favourite projects; one and the other to introduce his black serwas, to bring out this superb pantomime; vant, whom he had instructed, with infinite pains, to play Othello. He was disappointed in both. xxvi. A perfect slave to the school. For the election day he generally supplied above 100 compositions. xxvii. Warren, Bishop of Bangor, his patron 8. "Oft Fancy, prompted by concern, 216. An old song of the Man in the Moon, "Which tells us how he swills his claret, And feasts on powdered beef and carret." 229. Some frivolous gentry of the present day In alphabetic buckles shine away." I remember some like an M about 1788 or 1790. 229. "Your children living, and your grandsires dead, Loved while they thumb'd, and tasted as they read, The Hornbook's best edition, Gingerbread." Vol. 2. His toil is generous effort; but 'tis still P. 122. "A CHAMBER, trim as trim can be, domestic duties and enjoyments. A bed, snugg, with a double G." ?? 129. "One semblance more of me, God The Broomstick, too exactly, shows; 1 James Jennings is the author here alluded to.-J. W. W. Prior. QUEEN ANNE "doubts whether Mr. Prior's birth will entitle him to the office of envoy, but will give him any other situation that Lord Oxford shall recommend."-Lansdowne MSS. No. 1236, 146. Sharpe's Edition. P. 29. "With fancied rules and arbitrary laws, UNFINISHED parts, or rather, indications of what the remaining books were to contain. Fradubio and Frælissa. B. 1, c. 2, xliii. "We may not change, quoth he, this evil plight, Till we be bathed in a living well." Final action of the poem. B. 1, c. 11, vii. "Fair Goddess, lay that furious fit aside, Till I of wars and bloody Mars do sing, And Briton fields with Sarazin blood bedide, Sansjoy is a person who must have been intended to be brought forward again. If the allegorical names were always as happy as in the instances of Una and Duessa, the effect would be altogether so. Here they are good in themselves, and their significance not too apparent. Sir Hudibras. 2, 2, xvii. 2, 3, xxvi. A hemistich in the last line. 2, 8, lv. 2, 4, xli. A line of twelve syllables in the penultimate. 3, 4, xxxix. Hemistich, seventh line. "As Arthegall and Sophy now been ho2, 9, vi. noured." Arthegall. 3, 3, xxvii. B. 3, c. 2, st. iv. An oversight,-Guyon instead of the Red Cross Knight. "Achilles' arms which Arthegall did win." 3, 2, xxv. In the Bernardo of Bernardo de Balbuena, the hero wins the armour of Achilles. C. 9. Angela, the martial queen of the Angles, whose armour Britomart wears. 3, 3, lv.vi.-viii. B. 3. An oversight concerning Florimel, c. 1. Prince Arthur, Guyon, and Britomart 'Twixt that great Faery Queen and Paynim see her flying from the Foster, follow her, king, That with their horror heaven and earth did ring." Though he very rarely carries on the sentence from one stanza to another, he seems fond of carrying on the sound, and continuing the rhyme, or at least repeating the word at the beginning of one stanza with which the last ended. Some link of allusion or of sound he evidently liked to introduce. Guyon was one who -"knighthood took of good Sir Huon's hand, When with king Oberon he came to Faery Land." 2, 1, vi. Spenser's feeling concerning suicide. 2, 1, lviii. Concerning burial. 2, 1, lviii. 1, 10, xlii. and separate. Britomart passes the night in Malecasta Castle, proceeds on her way, and encounters and wounds Marinel, c. 4. And, c. 5, Prince Arthur meets her dwarf, who tells him that she had left the Court in consequence of Marinel's wound. In the Ruins of Time, he speaks of the Paradise "which Merlin by his magic slights Made for the gentle Squire to entertain 523-5. His fair Belphabe." "OUR posterity within few years will hardly understand some passages in the Faery Queen, or in Mother Hubbard's, or other tales in Chaucer, better known at this day to old courtiers than to young students." -JACKSON, 3, 746. Pasquier had the same notion that mo dels were as unfixed as they had been before his time. "SPENSER (SIR EGERTON BRYDGES says) gave rise to no school of imitators,-unless we attribute to his example the translations of Ariosto and Tasso by Harrington and Fairfax." His peculiar language was the probable fect in kindling others. cause. But no poet has produced more ef KENT is said to have frequently declared "that he caught his taste in gardening from reading the picturesque descriptions of Spenser. However this may be, the designs which he made for the works of that poet, are an incontestable proof that they had no "The literary characters of men of infeeffect upon his executive powers as a pain-rior genius are made by the character of the ter.-Notes to Mason's English Garden, vol. i. p. 395. age in which they live; and the main features of their writings are entirely of that Nor on his imaginative, Mr. Burgh might artificial form: but master minds impose have added. I think the versification of the Prothalamion an Epith. was formed upon some of Bernardo Tasso's Canzoni. See vol. i. p. 95, 118. their own shapes and colours upon their compositions, which, if tinged with any marks of their age, only betray them in subordinate parts. If Spenser's designs and characters took the costume of days of chi Mother Hubbard's Tale was published separately in 12mo. 1784, "with the obso-valry, the prima stamina of his poem, his lete words explained." "DIE hem in zijn luister zien wil, leze slechts zijn eigen bruilofsdicht; het geen alle my bekende epithalamien overtreft."BILDERDIGK. Notes to his Essay on Tragedy, p. 173. POPE says, "After my reading a canto of Spenser, two or three days ago, to an old lady between seventy and eighty, she said that I had been showing her a collection of pictures. She said very right. And I know not how it is, but there is something in Spenser that pleases one as strongly in one's old age as it did in one's youth. I read the Faery Queen when I was about twelve, with a vast deal of delight; and I think it gave me as much when I read it over about a year or two ago."-SPENCE's Anecdotes, p. main thoughts and language are founded on the truths of universal nature."-SIR E. BRYDGES, Theat. Poet. p. 34. BRAGGADOCHIO is to be found in Gyron le Courtoys, and I think also in "Peele's Old Wives' Tale;" but certes in Gyron. SYMPSON Concludes his notes on B. and F. by saying, "This is my first essay in criticism, and its good or ill success will either encourage me in, or deter me from prosecuting an edition of Spenser, toward which I have these several years been collecting materials. And as I wish to see a good edition of that fine poet, so I would invite all the learned and ingenious part of the world to contribute their assistance toward the effecting of it. For I am persuaded, that Spenser will make a figure no way inferior to the best Greek or Roman writers, when published like them, cum notis variorum." Pageants and court masques accustomed the people to such personifications as Spen ser's. LORD CHATHAM's sister, Mrs. Anne Pitt, "used often in her altercations with him to say, 'that he knew nothing whatever, except Spenser's F. Queen.' And no matter, 1759. Two editions of the Faery Queen, published by Upton and Church.-Monthly Review, vol. xx. p. 566-7. Ditto, vol. xxx. p. 33. Spenser blasphemed by Michael Wodhull and his reviewers. Ditto, vol. xliii. p. 306. “The Faery Queen is frequently laid down almost as soon as it is taken up! because it abounds with loathsome passages!" Ditto, vol. xliv. p. 265. The tiresome uniformity of his measure! Ditto, vol. lii. p. 111. Specimen of the Faery Queen in blank verse, canto 1, 1774. See the Review. Ditto, vol. lx. p. 324. Prince Arthur, an allegorical romance. The story from Spenser. 2 vols. 1778. (prose.) WHEN HORACE WALPOLE was planning a bower at Strawberry Hill, he said, “I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his allegories and drawling stanzas, to get at a picture."-Letters, vol. iii. p. 25. May. 1633. "On Monday after Candlemas day, the gentlemen of the inns of court performed their masque at court: they were sixteen in number, who rode through the streets in four chariots, and two others to carry their pages and musicians, attended by an hundred gentlemen on great horses, as well clad as ever I saw any. They far exceeded in bravery any masque that had formerly been presented by those societies, and performed the dancing part with much applause. In their company there was one Mr. Read of Gray's Inn, whom all the women and some men cried up for as handsome a man as the Duke of Buckingham. They were well used at court by the king and queen, no disgust given them, only this one accident fell:— Mr. May of Gray's Inn, a fine poet, he who translated Lucan, came athwart my lord chamberlain in the banquetting house, and he broke his staff over his shoulders, not knowing who he was: the king present, who knew him, for he calls him his poet, and told the chamberlain of it, who sent for him the next morning, and fairly excused himself to him, and gave him fifty pounds in pieces. I believe he was the more indulgent for his name's sake."—GERRARD, Strafford Letters, vol. i. p. 207. RICHARDSON. PAMELA. "I know not," says LADY M. W. MONTAGU (vol. iv. p.112), "under what constellation that foolish stuff was wrote; but it has been translated into more languages than any modern performance I ever heard of!" And she proceeds to relate a memorable example of its influence in Italy. Apology for the life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, in which the many falsehoods in a book called Pamela are exposed. 1741. |