And more to lull him in his slumber soft,

A trickling stream from high rock tumbling

down,

And ever drizzling rain upon the loft,

Mixt with a murmuring wind, much like the sound

Of swarming bees did cast him in a swown. No other noise, nor people's troubled cries, As still are wont t'annoy the walled town, Might there be heard; but careless Quiet lies Wrapt in eternal silence far from enemies.

There are doubtless many before whose eyes this article will come, who know little or nothing about the "Fairy Queen." Let us therefore, before we leave the poem, sketch, briefly, the plan of it:

Spenser laid out his work in twelve Books, six only of which he lived to complete. Each of these books is occupied with the adventures of a particular Knight, who goes forth as the champion of a particular virtue; and the accessory personages who appear, illustrate, in their characters and conduct, the virtue (or its opposites) treated of in the book in which they appear. Each of the champion Knights figures prominently in a book by himself, and then goes off the stage, or appears afterwards as an accessory character.

This explanation does not make manifest the connection between the books, nor the pertinence of the title to the whole. But Spenser did not finish his design. He completed six books, only, and it was not until the twelfth that he proposed to give his readers a view of his whole plan. This appears from a letter which he wrote to Raleigh, wherein he says:"The beginning, therefore of my history, if it were to be told by an historiographer, should be the twelfth book, which is the last; where I devise that the Fairy Queen kept her annual feast twelve days, upon which several days the occasion of the twelve several adventures happened"-not the adventures themselves, but the "occasion" or cause of them for these several Knights or champions who go through these adventures, are subjects of the Fairy Queen sent out by her on "occasion," and are abroad occupied for various periods.

The ingenuity of Spenser enabled him to make these pattern Knights not only illustrate the several virtues of Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Justice, &c. but to typify actual personages. In the course of the poem we find that the Fairy Queen is Queen Elizabeth, in her royal character, and Belphiæbe, the same, in

her character of " a most virtuous and beautiful lady." Prince Arthur, the Fairy Queen's most magnificent Knight, is the Earl of Leicester; Artegal, the Knight of Justice, is Sidney; the "Soudan" is Philip, as we have seen &c. Thus, his allegory becomes in many places a double allegory, and the whole forms a metrical romance, which, notwithstanding its great length, is carried forward with wonderful facility and rapidity, introducing us to knights, ladies, pages, squires, Saracens, enchanters, enchantresses, witches, spirits, dreams, dragons, wild-beasts, blatant-beasts, giants, satyrs, wild-men, iron-men; fishermen, mermaids, shepherds, shepherdesses, nymphs, graces, amazons, hermits, paliners, old Proteus and innumerable personified virtues and vices.

And now come we to a point which has been inuch discussed among critics: Why does this great poem, which seems the very embodiment of all that is romantic, wild, and beautiful in the old Gothic fiction, remain, in our day, so much in the background of publicity?-Why is not Spenser as much read as Shakespeare and Milton? In fertility of invention is he surpassed by Shakespeare, or equalled by Milton?-or in the genuine poetical value of his materials, and the moral purity and beauty of his creations, has he anything to fear from the comparison? yet it is evident that "The Fairy Queen" is not read, as "Hamlet," and "Paradise Lost," are read.

In explanation of this fact, various reasons have been assigned; such as the obsolete language, the allegory, and the great length of the poem. But the successes of Shakespeare, Bunyan, and Milton, are sufficient to set aside these objections. Dr. Hart, near the close of his essay, offers a few observations of his own on this point. He thinks that Spenser's want of entire success is due to a want of art in one particular-that his fertile imagination presented him so rapidly with new scenes and adventures, that he neglected to mark his transitions clearly and boldly-that "he enters so fully into the present scene that he forgets the one just past or just to come. The story-teller should be to some extent like a showman. To pull successfully the wires, he should stand apart, behind the scenes. To be so enwrapped in the subject as to forget your audience, is to reckon without your host. Spenser is so absorbed with what is immediately in hand, his imagination

**

is so completely engrossed with the present object, that the wants of the reader are forgotten. The reader is precipitated from one scene to another, without any sufficient warning or preparation. He consequently gets bewildered."

This is just criticism, so far as it sets forth a fault of Spenser; but does it thoroughly explain why he is not universally read? Shakespeare, also, is notoriously careless of the order and connection of his scenes; and writes on in the same absorbed and self-forgetful manner; while Milton, on the other hand, betrays more self-consciousness and artistical design to the reader than either Shakespeare or Spenser. Yet, of the three poets, Shakespeare, unquestionably, is the most universally appreciated. The exposition of Dr. Hart does not wholly satisfy us. Let us observe how authors obtain their readers. When we take up a book that is new to us, do we generally open at the first page and read it through? Do we not usually reserve that, until we have first dipped in at random here and there, and without understanding the connection, ascertained whether what we have lighted upon pleases us? The best writings of the best authors have a singular magnetic power upon minds constituted to appreciate them. Open them where you will, you immediately happen upon something that grapples your attention. Let us try the experiment. Here is "Hamlet." Fling the book across the room. It has fallen open. Now go and read the first sentence that you see:

"A murderer and a villain !

A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precèdent lord; a vice of kings:
A cut purse of the empire and the rule
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
And put it in his pocket!"

There! you pick the book up and put it in your own pocket, resolved to borrow or steal it till you have read more.

This power of seizing the attention, lives, alike, in the matter and the manner of a writer-and quite as much in the manner as in the matter. In those literary works, and particularly in those poems which are most read, we always find an intensely vital and vivifying spirit, compared with which, in producing popular effect, unity and coherence of design are of secondary importance. The perception of this fact has led some critics to the extreme of asserting that manner is everything to a poet, and that

This is

"he who executes best is best." going too far. Be it understood of ourselves that fine frenzies do not satisfy us, if they are not coherent and consistent-if they do not reproduce, in new combinations the true appearances of the external world and the natural port and gesture of the human soul. The best poetry is not only the most spirited, but it is the most true to nature, the most logical, the most inventive; it will bear to be read forcibly, with full lungs, and the strong utterance of passion; and it will bear to be read coolly and critically, like a demonstration in geometry. We do not say that such poetry is the only poetry; but that it is the best. It satisfies the reason and judgment, it satisfies the imagination and passions, it rouses and exalts the whole soul, it

Dissolves us into ecstasies

And brings all heaven before our eyes,

it is an eagle-winged eloquence, that first comes down and takes a strong grapple on the minds of men, with the talons of reason and judgment, and then bears them away on the pinions of imagination. Such poetry, once written, makes itself known and endures. It is acknowledged as equally supreme, "o'er the mind's sunshine bright and warm," and "o'er reason's colder hours."

In Spenser's poetry we find such purity and brilliancy of materials, and such fertility of invention, as have hardly been excelled; but, in brilliancy of spirit, it does not come up to the highest standard. His temper is not high-strung. He does not deal with the strongest passions in the heartiest manner. There is glow and feeling, but not to the extent of that divine ardor, which is rapturous, and which kindles rapture. His highest enthusiasm is in the Epithalamium. His "Fairy Queen" we read with admiration of its magnificence, yet with a feeling that other poets, some of them of much less inventive genius, have achieved profounder effects in productions of much less compass, written with more concentrated energy and power. Posterity, however, will not willingly let his works die. There will always be those who will remember, and by their labors assist others in remembering, the moral purity and tenderness, and the bountiful ideal wealth of Edmund Spenser.

Of his own age he was a conspicuous light, as he is still a shining illustration. His rank is with Bacon and Shakspeare,

who, in the same age, annexed to the realms of human knowledge large continents of thought, wherein "the whole mind may orb about ;" and, in contemplation of whose great works, we may truly say that, in that fortunate age, other New Worlds were explored besides America. It is a peculiar glory of Elizabeth that those intellectual discoverers were her cotemporaries, and that she encouraged and rewarded them. Many other sovereigns, intensely occupied with the active affairs of empire, have despised studious men, forgetting that all their high and mighty pageantry of action must speedily pass into oblivion, unless the monuments thereof are builded in books. Look back over the dilapidations of Time. See what an insignificant record of great actions the monumental granite of kings has been, compared with the monumental language of poets and historians. Granite cannot tell its own age, and will not burden its dull faculties with human remembrances. The steps of the pyramids lead up to nowhere, and sphynxes have themselves

become riddles. But Cheops and Cephrenes are still heard of in books. This great unstable globe is perpetually turning on its trunnions, and hurrying everything around towards the shady side of earthly oblivion; but books, like ranges of mountains, are the last objects that cease to reflect the light of one age to the eyes of another. Bacon says, of libraries, that they are "the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed." And sometimes, on opening a volume of history, we imagine ourselves in a sort of Westminster Abbey, where we behold kings, princes, nobles, warriors, each with the insignia of his offices and the trophies of his achievements gathered about him, each in his own robes or armor, lying on his own tomb, labelled with such an epitaph as it pleased his successors to give him, and all of them, in their helpless repose, silently appealing to the tender mercies of posterity.

IA

MR. EDITOR,

AM a quiet man; I may say, a very quiet man. Rarely, indeed, is my equanimity of temper disturbed; and, though the experiment has never been made, I feel an inward assurance that I could go through--even a steamboat explosion-coolly, calmly, and collectedly, instead of scatteraceously, as do some of a less quiet turn, and who are always found, at the time of such accidents, in the vicinity of the boiler, or other equally dangerous locality. I am satisfied that the papers, of the day after the disaster, would have my name in the list of those gentlemen who "behaved with great gallantry on the occasion;" or among those whose "admirable presence of mind and cool intrepidity enabled them to be of invaluable service to the ladies on the boat, many of whom were on deck at the moment of the shocking catastrophe." So, at least, I am sure it would be, did not my peculiar infirmity-of which you will presently know more-intervene to foil me.

I am known sir, in my neighborhood, as "THE QUIET MAN," and when I inform you that I live in the same vicinity with three old maids, a chatty young widow, and a number of gossiping misses, you may possibly appreciate the intensity of that placidity which has acquired, and still maintains for me, a reputation so enviable under these highly adverse circumstances. I have been known, when an awkward lout of a boy had well-nigh eradicated the corn upon my gouty toe, by crushing it with his bootheel, to turn to his mamma, who sat near, and, smiling sweetly, assure her in the blandest manner that, "it was of no consequence at all-made not the

slightest difference." I have been bled by a mosquito for half an hour, without wincing; and, when he had become so dropsical with the red current of my life, that he could no longer fly, I have been known to capture and slay him without one word of reproach, or the slightest malevolence of countenance. When the seediness of my coat and the shocking badness of my hat have procured for me the cut direct from old friends and fashionable acquaintances, I have calmly buttoned the one, and jauntily adjusting the other, walked forwards as imperturbably as if nothing whatever had occurred-just as the moon continued shining and held the even tenor of her way, despite the angry barkings of a diminutive cur which had imbibed the notion she had no business to shine. Aye, and I have been known-but sir, I will enumerate no further, lest the countless instances I could quote of my invincible quietude, should keep me too long away from the main subject of this letter.

I repeat it, then, I am a very quiet man-a mild, tranquil, unruffled, bland, placid man; and by some have even been thought phlegmatic.

But I am also, in some respects, a nervous man. I belong to that unfortunate class of persons whose acoustic ducts were too finely fashioned by nature in the beginning; over the drums of whose ears the parchment is either too thin, or too tightly drawn; and I am consequently the recipient of pains through that channel, which seem wellnigh incredible to those of less sensitive tympana-pains as real and racking, as tangible and torturous, as are kicks, cuffs, and stripes, to others of my fellow

creatures. So subtle, refined, and exquisitely delicate is my sense of hearing, I have often wished, that like the people of the moon, I had been created earless.

my

The faintest echo from the tongue of a termagant, or a scold, causes me incontinently to betake myself to heels; nor is it of any avail that I summon my resolution to aid me. Socrates philosophized, when Xantippe ranted and raved: but I consider flight a better thing than philosophy, when woman gives her tongue its will. Some of your street cries, in linked vociferation long drawn out, affect me sensibly. A feline concert from an adjacent roof, ends my repose for the night; while the cries of a cross child or a spoiled baby, induce in me certain snappish and pugnacious tendencies which might suggest to a timid mother the propriety of binding me, in a suitable sum, to keep the peace-first broken, be it observed, by their own darlings. "Can you pay this little bill, to-day, sir?" especially if I cannot-and I never can, till "tomorrow," or "the latter part of next week"-renders me a promising candidate for some friendly asylum. The tickings of a death-watch in the wall cause me to turn restlessly in bed; and the shrill pipings of a mosquito, or the buzz of a bee near my ear, are more dreaded than the concealed weapons they carry, in defiance of the statute made and provided. I am not a quiet man during the performances of an earthquake; am nervous on gunpowder days, such as national anniversaries; do not blame a dog for leaving the neighborhood of exploding fire-crackers; and am provokingly restless under the influences of opera music in churches. My teeth are set on edge by the scraping of a reed; and the mere thought, even in midsummer, of craunching a canethus converting the teeth into an amateur sugar mill-begets in me a chilliness which would be refreshing (in the dogdays) were it not also freezing; even a creaking hinge causes me to fly, with creeping cuticle, after the oil-can; and, though I have not tried it, I cannot doubt that the report of my adversary's pistol, in an affair of honor so miscalled, would cause me great trepidation, and force me to minute self-examinationsearching and thorough as if occasioned by the monitions of that still, small voice, ever heard when least desired, but which I dare not disregard.

These sounds, however, are trifles compared with another assault upon my ear, frequently made, and so very frequenty of late, I have been driven to this letter with a hope of relief. I allude, sir,laugh if you will-to AN OATH-—A CURSE. This it is, which shocks and shatters the whole web-work of my nerves--goes tingling and ripping through my cellular tissue causes ine involuntarily to wink as it flies past me; and grates and jangles upon my ear as if it would shiver the very skull itself. One of your big, black oaths, as it hums and hurtles and whizzes through the air, seems literally to cleave me through. I say seems, but the word is quite strong enough, for I have never learned the difference between verisimile and esse. We are happy or miserable as, to ourselves, we seem thus or so-not as we are. At times, I have believed myself riddled under a shower of oaths; and, as I know from actual experience how a man feels when he is shot, I have no hesitation in saying, that aside from the fatality sometimes resulting from lead, there is little choice between a ball, shot from some black-mouthed fire-arm, and an oath fired from the foul muzzle of a hard-swearer. Of course, I speak only for myself, and for others having a like sensitiveness of ear.

use it

I am fully aware of the eccentricity of these notions. My prejudices may be, doubtless they are, very singular and very antiquated: but, sir, I cannot help cherishing them. I am cognizant of the fact, that the world holds an oath in high esteem; but upon this point the world and I can never agree, though I do not undertake to say which party is in the right. I know that boys consider an oath a matter of much moment, and a proof of manliness-(rather mannishness); that dandies and "bloods as an elegant ornament of speech, and can scarce do without it, it being an excellent substitute for thoughts and ideas, and for giving weight and " expression to the same; that sea-captains use it as part of their discipline, to ensure prompt obedience to orders, and generals, as an accessory to victory; nor does it surprise me, a member, by-theby, of the Peace Society, that oaths, imprecations and curses should form a fit accompaniment to the wholesale murder which men call war. Rich old gents" use it as their prerogativefools, from a want of sense-and sailors, as a luxury. I have understood that