Note 647:B — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

To the charge of "critical negligence," in this respect, I am sorry to say, that I must plead guilty in my "Literary Hours;" where, in delineating the character of Spenser, I have brought forward this accusation of obsolete diction, without the proper discrimination. Vide Literary Hours, 3d edit. vol. ii. p. 161.—In every other respect I consider the criticism as correct. I had then read Spenser but twice through; a further familiarity with the Fairie Queene has induced me to withdraw the censure, and to accede to the opinion of Mr. Malone, who conceives the language of the Fairie Queene to have been "perfectly intelligible to every reader of poetry in the time of Queen Elizabeth, though the Shepheards Calendar was not even then understood without a commentary."—See his Dryden's Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 94.