Pope
himself imitated Chaucer and Spenser in burlesque fashion. John Philips,
in _The Splendid Shilling_, used Milton's heightened style to describe
the distresses of an impecunious poet. William Shenstone in _The School-
mistress_, parodied Spenser, yet the parody is in no way hostile, and
betrays an almost sentimental admiration. Spenser, like Milton, never
lost credit as a master, though his fame was obscured a little during the
reign of Dryden. His style, it must be remembered, was archaic in his
own time; it could not grow old, for it had never been young. Addison,
in _An Account of the Greatest English Poets_, says that Spenser's verse
Can charm an understanding age no more;
The long-spun allegories fulsome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below.
But the _Account_ is a merely juvenile work; its dogma is not the sword
of judgment, but the shield of ignorance. "The character he gives of
Spenser," said Pope, "is false; and I have heard him say that he never
read Spenser till fifteen years after he wrote it." As for Pope himself,
among the English poets Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were his childhood's
favorites, in that order; and the year before his death he said to
Spence--"I don't know how it is; 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 Faerie Queene, when I was about twelve, with infinite delight;
and I think it gave me as much when I read it over, about a year or two
ago.
Pages:
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48