Note 14 — TRANSLATIONS FROM JUVENAL.

This was a charge brought against Spenser so early as the days of Ben Jonson; who says, in his Discoveries, "Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language; yet I would have him read for his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius." This has been generally supposed to apply only to Spenser's "Pastorals;" but as in these he imitates rather a coarse and provincial than an obsolete dialect, the limitation of Jonson's censure is probably imaginary. It is probable, that, as the style of poetry in the latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and in that of her successor, had become laboured and ornate, Spenser's imitations of the old metrical romances had to his contemporaries an antique air of rude and naked simplicity, although his "Faery Queen" seems more intelligible to us than the compositions of Jonson himself. Dryden, whose charge was afterwards echoed by Pope, probably adopted it without very accurate investigation. Our idea of what is ancient does not necessarily imply obscurity; on the contrary, I am afraid that to modern ears the style of Addison sounds more antiquated than that of Dr Johnson; so that simplicity may produce the same effect as unintelligibility.