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plete: but the latter has that fort of unity and fimplicity, which refults from its nature.

THE Fairy Queen then, as a Gothic poem, derives its METHOD, as well as the other characters of its compofition, from the established modes and ideas of Chivalry.

Ir was ufual, in the days of knighterrantry, at the holding of any great feaft, for knights to appear before the prince, who prefided at it, and claim the privilege of being fent on any adventure, to which the folemnity might give occafion. For it was fupposed that, when fuch a throng of knights and barons bold, as MILTON fpeaks of, were got together, the diftreffed would flock in from all quarters, as to a place where they knew they might find and claim redrefs for all their grievances.

THIS

THIS was the real practice, in the days of pure and ancient Chivalry. And an image of this practice was afterwards kept up in the caftles of the great, on any extraordinary feftival or folemnity: of which, if you want an inftance, L refer you to the defcription of a feaft made at Lifle in 1453, in the court of PHILIP the Good, duke of Burgundy, for a Crufade against the Turks: as you may find it given at large in the memoirs of MATTHIEU DE CONCI, OLI VIER DE DE LA MARCHE, and MONSTRE

LET.

THAT feaft was held for twelve days: and each day was diftinguished by the claim and allowance of fome adventure.

Now, laying down this practice as a foundation for the poet's defign, you will fee how properly the Fairy Queen is conducted.

"I DEVISE," fays the poet himfelf in his letter to Sir W. RALEIGH, "that the Fairy Queen kept her annual "feaste xii days: upon which xii feve "ral days, the occafions of the xii feve"ral adventures happened; which being "undertaken by xii feveral knights, are " in these xii books severally handled.”

HERE you have the poet delivering his own method, and the reafon of it. It arose out of the order of his fubject. And would you defire a better reason for his choice?

YES; you will fay, a poet's method is not that of his fubject. I grant you, as to the order of time, in which the recital is made; for here, as SPENSER observes (and his own practice agrees to the rule), lies the main difference between the poet biftorical, and the hiftoriographer: the reafon of which is drawn from the

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nature

nature of Epic compofition itself, and holds equally, let the fubject be what it will, and whatever the fyftem of manners be, on which it is conducted. Gothic or Claffic makes no difference in this respect.

BUT the cafe is not the fame with regard to the general plan of a work, or what may be called the order of diftribution, which is and must be governed by the fubject-matter itself. It was as requifite for the Fairy Queen to confift of the adventures of twelve Knights, as for the Odyfey to be confined to the adventures of one Hero: justice had otherwise not been done to his fubject.

So that if you will fay any thing againft the poet's method, you must say that he fhould not have chofen this fubject. But this objection arifes from your claffic ideas of Unity, which have no place here: and are in every view foreign to the purpose,

if

if the poet has found means to give his work, though conlifting of many parts, the advantage of Unity. For in fome reasonable sense or other, it is agreed, every work of art must be one, the very idea of a work requiring it.

If you ask then, what is this Unity of SPENSER'S Poem? I fay, It confifts in the relation of its feveral adventures to one common original, the appointment of the Fairy Queen; and to one common end, the completion of the Fairy Queen's injunctions. The knights iffued forth on their adventures on the breaking up of this annual feaft: and the next annual feast, we are to fuppofe, is to bring them together again from the atchievement of their feveral charges.

THIS, it is true, is not the claffic Unity, which confifts in the reprefentation of one entire action: but it is an Unity of another fort, an unity refulting

from