in holy ground with all due solemnity, and the faithful dog shortly after expired on the tomb which was raised in memory of his master." The Life of Ipomydon. This is one of the most original and most amusing of the romances. Ipomydon, who is son to the king of Apulia, hearing that the king of Calabria is dead, and had left his throne to an only daughter of exceeding beauty, who had determined to marry none but the best knight in Christendom, conceives a strong passion for the princess on the report of her charms, and at length sets out with his foster-father sir Tholomeo and a small retinue to visit her incognito. They arrive just as the princess has taken her seat at table, and are admitted into the hall, when Ipomydon kneels to her and begs to be received into her service. The princess struck by his fine person, and surprised at the splendour of his appearance, makes him her cup-bearer. When he takes the cup from the butler he lets fall his rich mantle and gives it him, an act of generosity which still more increases the suspicions of the princess. The mystery of his conduct, and the secresy with which his name is concealed, heighten her curiosity, and this curiosity produces its natural effect. She falls in love with the stranger, and bids him sit at table with her cousin Jason, thinking to look at him more at her ease. Ipomydon being quite certain that he was not indifferent to her, took the liberty to look at her in return a little too boldly; by finding fault with Jason for a similar conduct towards one of her damsels she indirectly reproved him; but he who chose to tyrannize over the heart which he had won, as soon as dinner was over requested permission to resign his office and return into his own country, from which he would not be dissuaded by his friend Jason. He leaves however a trusty servant at the court, who sends him word that her council have applied to his uncle Meleager to insist upon her marrying, that a tournament is appointed, and the victor is to be rewarded with her hand. Ipomydon and sir Tholomeo again set off, they go to Meleager's court, and the adventurer requests to be admitted into his service, with some singular stipulations. "Ipomydon said, 'I shall you tell, Shall dwell in the queenys bower, At every turn that I her lead, Meleager surveyed him with some surprise; but justly concluding, from this strange proposal and from the splendour of his appearance, that the stranger knight was a man of great opulence, who wished to reside at his court for some mysterious reason, and not with any view to seduce the queen, replied that he accepted the bargain; and, the chase being concluded, conducted the new, chamberlain to her majesty, who saw nothing in the person of Ipomydon which could lead. her to refuse the whimsical salary annexed to his service. Thus was he naturally placed on a footing of familiarity with the royal couple, which he well knew how to improve; and his wealth and generosity soon secured the affection of their courtiers, so that he shortly became the universal favourite." As the time fixed for the tournament approached, Ipomydon is the only person who seems to feel no concern; he declares that he is not used to such rough amusements, that they afford him no entertainment, and that he shall go hunting the first day. Every body regrets that so handsome a knight should be such a coward. He however sets off before daybreak, sounds his horn under the windows, and bidding sir Tholomeo hunt his white greyhound, and wait for him at a place appointed with the game, enters the lists in white armour, on a white horse, and bears away the honour of the first day; then discovering himself in secret to Jason, he bids him commend him to his lady, and tell her that he had done thus much for her, but was now compelled to return to his own country. The next day, while Tholomeo hunts his red greyhound, he wins the honour in red armour, on a bay horse, and again repeats the same story to Jason; and on the third day conquers in black, still obstinately refusing to take possession of the kingdom and console the princess by his presence, as Jason beseeches him. He now departs in earnest, but sends his three horses and three suits of armour, one to Meleager, one to the queen, and one to sir Campanys, the bravest of his competitors, declaring himself the victor. Ipomydon on his return finds his father dead: his mother now tells him that before her marriage she had met with an accident, which was by no means uncommon, Nel secol prisco, in quella bella etate Ch' era d'ogni virtute il mondo adorno: BERNARDO TASSO. in consequence of which accident he had an elder brother who had sent her a ring to give him, that if ever they met they might know each other. Ipomydon takes the ring and resolves to seek him; but at this time his trusty servant sends him intelligence from Calabria that duke Geron has taken arms to compel the princess to marry him. Immediately he sets out to her succour, but as usual, instead of appearing in his own character, goes in masquerade, in rusty armour, with a crooked spear, and shaved like a fool. In this trim he enters Meleager's hall, and demands as a boon the first adventure which may offer. This king was probably sufficiently sorry that he had granted it, when a damsel and a dwarf came in and demanded help for his niece the princess, now besieged in her citadel by duke Geron. The fool however displays his prowess on the way by discomfiting sundry knights, the last of whom was Geron's brother, whose armour he puts on, as better than his own. In this armour he encounters Geron himself at last, and compels him to cry for mercy; but the princess, when she sees him about to enter the gate, mistakes him for an enemy by his arms, escapes at another gate, and embarks on board a ship in the river. She is met on the way by sir Campanys, who is coming to her succour, he encourages her to return, and engages in battle with Ipomydon. Ipomydon's gauntlet is struck off, the ring is recognized by Campanys, who then embraces him as his brother; the mistake is cleared up, and the marriage takes place at last. Sir Eglamour of Artoys is less original and less interesting. Lay le Fraine, a translation from the French of Marie, seems misplaced among tales of chivalry. Sir Eger, sir Grahame, and sir Gray Steel. This is one of the last metrical romances which has been printed for popular sale: the copy which Mr. Ellis has made use of bears date 1711; but the printer had evidently followed a very im perfect manuscript, and most likely cor rupted it still farther himself. Roswal and Lillian appears to have been printed about the same time, and also at some provincial press. The kingdom of Bealm is mentioned in both these poems: in the first it is not easy to fix its situation, it must be at no great distance from Galloway; in the latter it is not very far from Naples. They appear to be of much the same age, and neither of any great antiquity. Sir Degore, and Amy's and Amylion, are both very old, being in the Auchinleck MSS. Of the last, which concludes the work, Mr. Scott has given an account in his notes to sir Tristram. Such are the contents of these interesting volumes. The analyses are written with a levity which we have heard censured. It is perhaps too frequently appa rent, but it is difficult to relate absurdities without seeming to perceive them. We should however have liked the abstracts better had they been written more in the manner of an old chronicler than of a modern. English literature is much indebted to Mr. Ellis. We hope the success of his present work may induce him to extend it. Doubtless it would be far better that the poems themselves should be published; but if the age will not afford encou ragement for this, it is desirable that we should have abstracts of all, especially from one who knows so well to select whatever is valuable. ART. II-The Works of Edmund Spenser. In eight Volumes. With the principal Illustre tions of various Commentators. To which are added, Notes, some Account of the Lite of Spenser, and a glossarial, and other Indexes. By the Rev. HENRY JOHN TODD, M.A. F.A.S. 8vo. 8 Vols. IT was well remarked in the best of our magazines, when a new general collection of British poets was announced, that such collections were not desirable; that to the good writers there should be more comment, and of the indifferent ones less text; that the great poets ought to be edited with accuracy, labour, and learning, and the little ones cut down into anthologies. English literature is greatly indebted to Mr. Todd for his learned, laborious, and accurate edition of Milton, and not less so for the present work. If there be any truth in physiognomy, the portrait prefixed to this edition is not the portrait of Edmund Spenser. It is the face of a short-sighted man wrinkling up his under eye-lids because he sees dimly; neither feeling nor genius, nor strong intellect, nor moral purity, are discoverable in any of its features; and that Spenser should have been without the outward and visible signs of any or all of these qualities, with which heaven had so richly endowed him, is not to be believed. What is the history of the original picture? the name may have been affixed to give a value to the portrait of some forgotten person, or it may have been another Spenser, like the whole-length portrait of some Chaucer given at the end of Mr. Godwin's work, which certainly is not the. likeness of old Geoffrey. If in this case it cannot be incontestably authenticated, we hope it will not be copied in any future edition; it is a libel upon the most delightful of all poets. The present edition is in many respects the best which has ever appeared; it is the first to which the illustrations of various commentators have been subjoined, and what is of greater importance, the text has been carefully collated with the editions published during the author's lifetime. The original spelling is retained: on this subject we shall copy what the editor says. "It is sufficient,' if I may apply to this circumstance the just observation of Dr. Johnson respecting the distinction of Shakspeare, that the words are Spenser's. If phraseology is to be changed as words grow uncouth by disuse, or gross by vulgarity, the history of every language will be lost; we shall no longer have the words of any author; and, as these alterations will be often unskilfully made, we shall in time have very little of his meaning.' And indeed if the text of Spenser, in the progress of English literature, had been constantly examined; I may be permitted, I hope, respectfully to observe that, in the invaluable dictionary of Johnson himself, some words could not have been admitted as the words of Spenser; that, in the remarks of Dr. Jortin, some conjectures would have been found needless; and that, in the observations even of Warton, a censure or two would never have appeared.' 'I have also added, says the editor, a very humble account of the life of Spenser, drawn from authentic records; the curiosity and importance of which will, I trust, be admitted by the liberal and candid, as an apology for the want of biographical elegance. Mr. Todd need not have apologized; he has diligently collected many facts which had escaped former biographers; and as for the custom of sitting in judgment upon their authors, which modern editors have introduced, and telling the reader what he is to admire, and what he is not; it is a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observ ance. Spenser was born in London, in East Smithfield, by the Tower, about the year 1553: he was descended from the an cient and honourable family of Spenser, as his writings satisfactorily prove; and is himself the greatest honour of which that family can boast. The nobility of the Spensers, says Gibbon, has been illustrated and enriched by the trophies of Marlborough; but I exhort them to consider the Faerie Queen as the most precious jewel of their coronet.' The circumstances of his parents must however have been humble, since he was admitted at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, as a sizer. There is no truth in the story that he contended unsuccessfully against Andrews,afterwards the bishop, for a fellowship; but there seems to be no doubt that some disagreement took place between him and the master or tutor of the hall. The fault is if there be one spark of truth in the chanot likely to have been on Spenser's side, racter which his friend Harvey has given of Dr..Perne. "And wil you needes have my testimoniall of youre old controllers new behaviour? A busy and dizy heade; a brazen forehead; a ledden braine; a woodden wit; a copper face;* a stony breast; a factious and elvish hearte; a founder of novelties; a confounder of his owne and his friends good gifts; a morning bookeworm; an afternoone maltworm; a right juggler, as ful of his sleights, wyles, fetches, casts of legerdemaine, toyes to mocke apes withal, odde shiftes, and knavish practizes, as his skin can holde.' He then proceeds to reprobate the circumstance of many pupils, jackemates and hayle-fellowes-wel-met with their tutors; and, by your leave, some too, because forsooth they be gentlemen or great heires or a little neater and gayer than their fellowes, true,) their very own tutors? To the notice (shall I it for shame? beleeve me, tis too say of this abuse in academical instruction he subjoins a copious list of Latin rellections, full of indignation at its existence; one of which seems to point at the disagreement al "This quotation certainly exhibits a choice example of Harvey's talent in the language of abuse; and Nash fails not to remind him of his singular liberalitie and bountie in bestowing this beautifull encomium upon Doctour Perne,' in his foure letters confuted, 1592. Sign. E. 2. The author of the Life of Spenser, in the Biographia Britannica, has suffered a singular error of the press, in this passage of Harvey's letter, to pass unnoticed; by which, however, I grant, the severity of Harvey is somewhat softened, viz. a copper face; a sattin breast, &c.' The same ludicrous mistake occurs in the Life of Spenser, which is given in the Supplement to the Universal Magazine, vol. xlix. p. 33, &c. Nn ANN. REV. VOL. IV. ready mentioned: Cætera ferè ut olim bellum inter capita et membra continuatum.” There is some reason to suppose that some of Spenser's verses were published so early as 1569, the year in which he entered at Cambridge. Mr. Todd has discovered in a little volume, entitled, a Theatre for Worldlings, &c. six of the visions of Petrarch, differing only in a few corrections from those which are printed among his works. In the same volume also there are eleven of the visions of Bellay, in blank verse, yet according so nearly with the rhymed versions which Spenser afterwards published, as to shew that his versions were made from them, many whole lines being the same. Mr. Todd on these grounds, and on a passage in one of Harvey's letters, in which he praises his Dreames, thinks that these early translations are his. We were at first inclined to the same opinion, but on re-examination find reason to doubt, or to disbelieve. In the Theatre, the visions of Petrarch are said to be translated out of the Brabants speech, and those of Bellay out of Dutch. It is not likely that Spenser ever understood Dutch, and very unlikely that he should have understood it at the age of sixteen, which must have been his age within a year or two when the Theatre was published. Harvey's letter strengthens us in this opinion. "I dare saye, he says, you wyll hold your selfe reasonably wel satisfied, if your Dreames be but as well esteemed of in England as Petrarches Visions be in Italy." This would hardly have been said if Petrarch's Visions were the very poems alluded to. These visions are said, in the edition which the bookseller published when Spenser was in Ireland, to have been formerly translated, it is not stated by whom. But it is more likely that Spenser or the bookseller added them to complete the subject and fill the volume, than that he should have translated from the Dutch at the age of sixteen. There remains then a charge of plagiarism with respect to the Visions of Bellay, but it is of no very serious nature. He needed not, as Mr. Todd observes, to borrow such petty aids to fame. They may have been originally written by one of his friends who gave them to him to remodel. After having taken his last degree in arts, Spenser, as it is supposed, left Camb.idge, and went to reside with some relations in the north of England; in 1578 be ventured, by Harvey's advice, to Lon don. He had before this time written his Dreams, which are probably the other translations from Bellay; the Legends and Court of Cupid, which seem to have been interwoven into the Faerie Queen; his Slomber, his Dying Pellicane,and his Stemmata Dudleiana, of which nothing is known; his Epithalamion Thamesis, also in the Faerie Queen; and a discourse un der the title of the English Poet, which he purposed then to publish, but fulfilled not his intention. In a singular and excellent book entitled, France painted to the Life, of which the second edition was printed in 1657, a poem of Spenser's is mentioned, or rather meant to be mentioned, which is not now to be found among his works. The passage is as follows: the writer is de scribing his fellow-travellers in the coach from Orleans to Paris: "—and so I am come to the old woman, which was the last of our goodly companions; a woman so old, that I am not at this day fully resolved, whether she were ever young or no: it was well I had read the scriptures, otherwise I might have been prone to have thought her one of the first pieces of the creation, and that by some mischance she had escaped the Flood: her face was for all the world like unto that of Sybilla Erythraea in some old print, or that of one of Solomon's two harlots in the painted cloth; you would not but have imagined her one of the relikes of the first age after the building of Babel, for her very complexion was a confusion more dreadfull than that of languages: as yet I am uncertain whether the poem of our arch poet Spenser entitled was not purposely intended on her; sure I am it is very applicable in the title." p. 309. In the book before us a blank is unluckily left where the name of the poem should have been; whether it be the same in other copies we know not; but we have noticed the page that Mr. Todd may examine, if he should think there is any hope of recovering the poem by this clue. On his arrival in London Harvey iatro duced him to sir Philip Sidney. It has been of late years the fashion to depreciate the genius of this most admirable man; and Mr. Todd, who, in matters of taste, exercises more faith than reason, joins in the common censure. Horace Walpole, we believe, was the first person who hazarded this opinion, and we all know how opinions are taken ready-made upon authority. Much of the praise which Sidney received during his life may have such been paid to his rank; it may have been flattery as to its motive, but in its matter it was no more than the praise to which he was entitled. Nobody, it has been said, reads the Arcadia. We have known very many persons who have read it, men, women, and children, and never knew one who read it without deep interest, and an admiration at the genius of the writer, great in proportion as they were capable of appreciating it. The verses are very bad, not that he was a bad poet, (on the contrary, much of his poetry is of high merit,) but because he was then versifying upon an impracticable system. Let the reader pass over all the eclogues, as dull interludes unconnected with the drama, and if he do not delight in the story itself, in the skill with which the incidents are woven together and unravelled, and in the Shakspearian power and character of language with which they are painted; let him be assured the fault is in himself and not in the book. Biography, like history, has been too often made up of falsehoods; the first thing which he discovers, who conscientiously sets about to write either, is, that they who have gone before him have either been deficient in research, or in veracity, or in both. Scarcely any of the anecdotes which have been related of Spenser are true. His introduction to Sidney was not by means of the stanzas describing despair; it is not true that he sent to the queen the lines about rhyme and reason, complaining that her intended bounty was withheld from him; it is not true that his merit was neglected and unrewarded; it is not true that he perished in the streets of Dublin. Mr. Todd says he was probably employed at Penshurst in some literary service; and at least assisted, we may suppose, the Platonic and chivalrous studies of the gallant and learned youth, who had so kindly noticed him. This is conjecture only; but whether he acted as tutor or not, the conversation of such a man must have been of infinite advantage to Sidney; and there is proof enough that Spenser on his part was a learner also. He became a convert to the scheme of introducing the classical metres. On this subject he thus expresses himself in his letters to Harvey. "As for the twoo worthy gentlemen, master Sidney, and master Dyer, they have me, I thanke them, in some use of familiarity: of whom, and to whome, what speache passeth for youre credite and estimation, I leave your selfe to conceive, having alwayes so well cou ceived of my unfained affection, and zeale towardes you. And nowe they have proclaim ed in their apsiwway a general surceasing and silence of balde rymers, and also of the verie beste to: in steade whereof, they have, by authoritie of their whole senate, prescribed certaine lawes and rules of quantities of English sillables, for English verse; having had thereof already great practise, and drawen mee to their faction. Newe bookes I heare of none, but only of one that writing a certaine booke, called The Schoole of Abuse, and dedicating it to maister Sidney, was for hys labor scorned; if at leaste it be in the follie is it, not to regarde aforehande the ingoodnesse of that nature to scorne. Such clination and qualitie of him, to whome wee dedicate oure bookes. Suche mighte I happily incurre, entituling My Slomber, and the other pamphlets, unto his honor. I meant them rather to maister Dyer But I am, of late, more in love wyth my Englishe versifying, than with ryming: whyche I should have done long since, if I would then have followsuspicabar cum Aschamo sapere; nunc Auyour councell Sed te solum iam tum lam video egregios alere Poëtas Anglicos.” ed "Truste me, your verses I like passingly well, and envye your hidden paines in this kinde, or rather maligne and grudge at your selfe, that woulde not once imparte so muche to me. But, once or twice, you make a breache in maister Drant's rules: quod tamen condonabimus tanta Poëtæ, tuæg ipsius maximæ in his rebus autoritati. You shall see, when we meete in London, (whiche, when it shall be, certifye us) howe fast I have followed after you in that course: beware, leaste in time I overtake you. Veruntamen te solùm sequar, (ut sæpenumerò sum professus,) nunquam sané assequar, dum vivam" The specimen of iambics in this letter is surely misprinted: thought' should end the second line, instead of beginning the third. This scheme of versification, however once, says Mr. Todd, the favourite employment of our poets in the age of Elizabeth, will be always too repulsive to gain many admirers or imitators; requiring, as it generally requires, a pronunciation most dismal, most unmusical, or most ridicu lous; and in a note he quotes the following passage from Nash, which as applied to that scheme of hexameter, has both truth and humour. "The hexamiter verse I graunt to be a gentleman of an auncient house, (so is many an English beggar,) yet this clyme of ours hee cannot thrive in; our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough in; hee goes twitching and hopping in our language like a man running upon quagmiers, up the hill |