Note 42 — TO THE MOST HONOURABLE JOHN, LORD MARQUIS OF NORMANBY, EARL OF MULGRAVE,[28] &c. AND KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER.

That Spenser's twelve champions, each of whom was to atchieve a distinct and separate adventure, could ever have been so brought together, as to entitle the "Fairy Queen" to be called a regular epic, may be justly doubted, I confess I think it probable, that the difficulty of concluding his work, was one great cause of its being left unfinished.

Dryden's objection to the "Paradise Lost," is founded on the unhappy termination, which is contrary to the rules of the epopee. Even so it has been disputed, whether a tragedy, which ends happily, is properly and regularly entitled to the name. Yet the story is more completely winded up in the "Paradise Lost," than in the "Iliad," where Troy is left standing, after all the battles which are fought about it. Our reverence for the ancients, in this and many other instances, has been driven to superstitious bigotry.