Volume 2 — LETTERS ON CHIVALRY AND ROMANCE.

LETTER I.

The ages, we call barbarous, present us with many a subject of curious speculation. What, for instance, is more remarkable than the Gothic Chivalry? or than the spirit of Romance, which took its rise from that singular institution?

Nothing in human nature, my dear friend, is without its reasons. The modes and fashions of different times may appear, at first sight, fantastic and unaccountable. But they, who look nearly into them, discover some latent cause of their production.

as sings our philosophical bard; but to come at this knowledge, is the difficulty. Sometimes a close attention to the workings of the human mind is sufficient to lead us to it: sometimes more than that, the diligent observation of what passes without us, is necessary.

This last I take to be the case here. The prodigies we are now contemplating, had their origin in the barbarous ages. Why then, says the fastidious modern, look any further for the reason? Why not resolve them at once into the usual caprice and absurdity of barbarians?

This, you see, is a short and commodious philosophy. Yet barbarians have their own, such as it is, if they are not enlightened by our reason. Shall we then condemn them unheard, or will it not be fair to let them have the telling of their own story?

Would we know from what causes the institution of Chivalry was derived? The time of its birth, the situation of the barbarians amongst whom it arose, must be considered: their wants, designs, and policies, must be explored: we must inquire when, and where, and how, it came to pass that the Western world became familiarized to this prodigy, which we now start at.

Another thing is full as remarkable, and concerns us more nearly. The spirit of Chivalry was a fire which soon spent itself: but that of Romance, which was kindled at it, burnt long, and continued its light and heat even to the politer ages.

The greatest geniuses of our own and foreign countries, such as Ariosto and Tasso in Italy, and Spenser and Milton in England, were seduced by these barbarities of their forefathers; were even charmed by the Gothic Romances. Was this caprice and absurdity in them? Or, may there not be something in the Gothic Romance peculiarly suited to the views of a genius, and to the ends of poetry? And may not the philosophic moderns have gone too far in their perpetual ridicule and contempt of it?

To form a judgment in the case, the rise, progress, and genius of Gothic Chivalry must be explained.

The circumstances in the Gothic fictions and manners, which are proper to the ends of poetry (if any such there be) must be pointed out.

Reasons, for the decline and rejection of the Gothic taste in later times, must be given.

You have in these particulars both the Subject and the Plan of the following Letters.

LETTER II.

I look upon Chivalry, as on some mighty river, which the fablings of the poets have made immortal. It may have sprung up amidst rude rocks, and blind deserts. But the noise and rapidity of its course, the extent of country it adorns, and the towns and palaces it ennobles, may lead a traveller out of his way, and invite him to take a view of those dark caverns,

I enter, without more words, on the subject I began to open to you in my last letter.

The old inhabitants of these North-West parts of Europe were extremely given to the love and exercise of arms. The feats of Charlemagne and our Arthur, in particular, were so famous as in later times, when books of Chivalry were composed, to afford a principal subject to the writers of them44.

But Chivalry, properly so called, and under the idea of “a distinct military order, conferred in the way of investiture, and accompanied with the solemnity of an oath and other ceremonies, as described in the old historians and romancers,” was of later date, and seems to have sprung immediately out of the Feudal Constitution.

The first and most sensible effect of this constitution, which brought about so mighty a change in the policies of Europe, was the erection of a prodigious number of petty tyrannies. For, though the great barons were closely tied to the service of their Prince by the conditions of their tenure, yet the power which was given them by it over their own numerous vassals was so great, that, in effect, they all set up for themselves; affected an independency; and were, in truth, a sort of absolute Sovereigns, at least with regard to one another. Hence, their mutual aims and interests often interfering, the feudal state was, in a good degree, a state of war: the feudal chiefs were in frequent enmity with each other: the several combinations of feudal tenants were so many separate armies under their head or chief: and their castles were so many fortresses, as well as palaces, of these puny princes.

In this state of things one sees, that all imaginable encouragement was to be given to the use of arms, under every different form of attack and defence, according as the safety of these different communities, or the ambition of their leaders, might require. And this condition of the times, I suppose, gave rise to that military institution, which we know by the name of Chivalry.

Further, there being little or no security to be had amidst so many restless spirits and the clashing views of a neighbouring numerous and independent nobility, the military discipline of their followers, even in the intervals of peace, was not to be relaxed, and their ardour suffered to grow cool, by a total disuse of martial exercises. And hence the proper origin of Justs and Turnaments; those images of war, which were kept up in the castles of the barons, and, by an useful policy, converted into the amusement of the knights, when their arms were employed on no serious occasion.

I call this the proper origin of Justs and Turnaments; for the date of them is carried no higher, as far as I can find, even in France (where unquestionably they made their first appearance) than the year 1066; which was not till after the introduction of the feudal government into that country. Soon after, indeed, we find them in England and in Germany; but not till the feudal policy had spread itself in those parts, and had prepared the way for them.

You see, then, my notion is, that Chivalry was no absurd and freakish institution, but the natural and even sober effect of the feudal policy; whose turbulent genius breathed nothing but war, and was fierce and military even in its amusements.

I leave you to revolve this idea in your own mind. You will find, I believe, a reasonable foundation for it in the history of the feudal times, and in the spirit of the feudal government.

LETTER III.

If the conjecture, I advanced, of the rise of Chivalry, from the circumstances of the feudal government, be thought reasonable, it will not be difficult to account for the several CHARACTERISTICS of this singular profession.

I. “The passion for arms; the spirit of enterprize; the honour of knighthood; the rewards of valour; the splendour of equipages;” in short, every thing that raises our ideas of the prowess, gallantry, and magnificence of these sons of Mars, is naturally and easily explained on this supposition.

Ambition, interest, glory, all concurred, under such circumstances, to produce these effects. The feudal principles could terminate in nothing else. And when, by the necessary operation of that policy, this turn was given to the thoughts and passions of men, use and fashion would do the rest; and carry them to all the excesses of military fanaticism, which are painted so strongly, but scarcely exaggerated, in the old Romances.

II. “Their romantic ideas of justice; their passion for adventures; their eagerness to run to the succour of the distressed; and the pride they took in redressing wrongs, and removing grievances;” all these distinguishing characters of genuine Chivalry are explained on the same principle. For, the feudal state being a state of war, or rather of almost perpetual violence, rapine, and plunder, it was unavoidable that, in their constant skirmishes, stratagems, and surprizes, numbers of the tenants or followers of one Baron should be seized upon and carried away by the followers of another: and the interest, each had to protect his own, would of course introduce the point of honour, in attempting by all means to retaliate on the enemy, and especially to rescue the captive sufferers out of the hands of their oppressors.

It would be meritorious, in the highest degree, to fly to their assistance, when they knew where they were to be come at; or to seek them out with diligence, when they did not. This last feudal service soon introduced, what may be truly called romantic, the going in quest of adventures; which at first, no doubt, was confined to those of their own party, but afterwards, by the habit of acting on this principle, would be extended much further. So that in process of time, we find the Knights errant, as they were now properly styled, wandering the world over in search of occasions on which to exercise their generous and disinterested valour, indifferently to friends and enemies in distress;

III. “The courtesy, affability, and gallantry, for which these adventurers were so famous, are but the natural effects and consequences of their situation.”

For the castles of the Barons were, as I said, the courts of these little sovereigns, as well as their fortresses; and the resort of their vassals thither in honour of their chiefs, and for their own proper security, would make that civility and politeness, which is seen in courts and insensibly prevails there, a predominant part in the character of these assemblies.

This is the poet’s own account of

And again, more largely in B. VI. C. i. s. 1.

For Faery Court means the reign of Chivalry; which, it seems, had undergone a fatal revolution before the age of Milton, who tells us that Courtesy

Further, the free commerce of the ladies, in those knots and circles of the great, would operate so far on the sturdiest knights, as to give birth to the attentions of gallantry. But this gallantry would take a refined turn, not only from the necessity there was of maintaining the strict form of decorum, amidst a promiscuous conversation under the eye of the Prince and in his own family; but also from the inflamed sense they must needs have of the frequent outrages committed, by their neighbouring clans of adversaries, on the honour of the sex, when by chance of war they had fallen into their hands. Violations of chastity being the most atrocious crimes they had to charge on their enemies, they would pride themselves in the merit of being its protectors: and as this virtue was, of all others, the fairest and strongest claim of the sex itself to such protection, it is no wonder that the notions of it were, in time, carried to so platonic an elevation.

Thus, again, the great master of Chivalry himself, on this subject,

Not but the foundation of this refined gallantry was laid in the ancient manners of the German nations. Cæsar tells us how far they carried their practice of chastity, which he seems willing to account for on political principles. However that be, their consideration of the sex was prodigious, as we see in the history of their irruptions into the Empire; where among all their ravages and devastations of other sorts, we find they generally abstained from offering any violence to the honour of the women.

IV. It only remains to account for that “character of Religion,” which was so deeply imprinted on the minds of all knights, and was essential to their institution. We are even told, that the love of God and of the ladies went hand in hand, in the duties and ritual of Chivalry.

Two reasons may be assigned for this singularity:

First, the superstition of the times, in which Chivalry arose; which was so great, that no institution of a public nature could have found credit in the world, that was not consecrated by the churchmen, and closely interwoven with religion.

Secondly, the condition of the Christian states; which had been harassed by long wars, and had but just recovered a breathing-time from the brutal ravages of the Saracen armies. The remembrance of what they had lately suffered from these grand enemies of the faith, made it natural, and even necessary, to engage a new military order on the side of religion.

And how warmly this principle, a zeal for the faith, was acted upon by the professors of Chivalry, and how deeply it entered into their ideas of the military character, we see from the term so constantly used by the old Romancers, of Recreant [i. e. Apostate] Knight; by which they meant to express, with the utmost force, their disdain of a dastard or vanquished knight. For, many of this order falling into the hands of the Saracens, such of them as had not imbibed the full spirit of their profession, were induced to renounce their faith, in order to regain their liberty. These men, as sinning against the great fundamental laws of Chivalry, they branded with this name; a name of complicated reproach, which implied a want of the two most essential qualities of a Knight, COURAGE and FAITH.

Hence too, the reason appears why the Spaniards, of all the Europeans, were furthest gone in every characteristic madness of true chivalry. To all the other considerations, here mentioned, their fanaticism in every way was especially instigated and kept alive by the memory and neighbourhood of their old infidel invaders.

And thus we seem to have a fair account of that PROWESS, GENEROSITY, GALLANTRY, and RELIGION, which were the peculiar and vaunted characteristics of the purer ages of Chivalry.

Such was the state of things in the Western world, when the Crusades to the Holy Land were set on foot. Whence we see how well prepared the minds of men were for engaging in that enterprize. Every object, that had entered into the views of the institutors of Chivalry, and had been followed by its professors, was now at hand, to inflame the military and religious ardor of the knights, to the utmost. And here, in fact, we find the strongest and boldest features of their genuine character: daring to madness, in enterprises of hazard: burning with zeal for the delivery of the oppressed; and, which was deemed the height of religious merit, for the rescue of the holy city out of the hands of infidels; and, lastly, exalting their honour of chastity so high as to profess celibacy; as they constantly did, in the several orders of knighthood created on that extravagant occasion.

LETTER IV.

What think you, my good friend, of this learned deduction? Do not you begin to favour my conjecture, as whimsical as it might seem, of the rise and genius of Knight-errantry.

And yet (so slippery is the ground, on which we system-makers stand) from what I observed of the spirit, with which the Crusades were carried on, a hint may be taken, which threatens to overturn my whole system.

It is, “That, whereas I derive the Crusades from the spirit of Chivalry, the circumstances attending the progress of the Crusades, and even as pointed out by myself, seem to favour the opposite opinion of Chivalry’s taking its rise from that enterprize.”

For thus the argument is drawn out by a learned person45, to whom I communicated the substance of my last Letter.

“On the crumbling of the Western empire into small states, with regular subordinations of vassals and their chiefs, who looked up to a common sovereign, it was soon found that those chiefs had it in their power to make themselves very formidable to their masters; and, just in that crisis of European manners and empire, the Saracens having expelled Christianity from the East, the Western Princes seized the opportunity, and with great craft turned the warlike genius of their feudataries, which would otherwise have preyed upon themselves, into the spirit of Crusades against the common enemy.

But when, now, the ardour of the Crusades was abated in some sort, though not extinguished, the Gothic princes and their families had settled into established monarchies. Then it was, that the restless spirit of their vassals, having little employment abroad, and being restrained in a good degree from exerting itself with success in domestic quarrels, broke out in all the extravagances of KNIGHT-ERRANTRY.

Military fame, acquired in the Holy land, had entitled the adventurers to the insignia of arms, the source of Heraldry; and inspired them with the love of war and the passion of enterprize. Their late expeditions had given them a turn for roving in quest of adventures; and their religious zeal had infused high notions of piety, justice, and chastity.

The scene of action being now more confined, they turned themselves, from the world’s debate, to private and personal animosities. Chivalry was employed in rescuing humble and faithful vassals, from the oppression of petty lords; their women, from savage lust; and the hoary heads of hermits (a species of Eastern monks, much reverenced in the Holy land), from rapine and outrage.

In the mean time the courts of the feudal sovereigns grew magnificent and polite; and, as the military constitution still subsisted, military merit was to be upheld; but, wanting its old objects, it naturally softened into the fictitious images and courtly exercises of war, in justs and tournaments: where the honour of the ladies supplied the place of zeal for the holy Sepulchre; and thus the courtesy of elegant love, but of a wild and fanatic species, as being engrafted on spiritual enthusiasm, came to mix itself with the other characters of the Knights-errant.”

In this way, you see, all the characteristics of Chivalry, which I had derived from the essential properties of the feudal government, are made to result from the spirit of Crusades, which with me was only an accidental effect of it: and this deduction may be thought to agree best with the representation of the old Romancers.

This hypothesis, so plausible in itself, is very ingeniously supported. Yet I have something to object to it; or rather, which flatters me more, I think I can turn it to the advantage of my own system.

For what if I allow (as indeed I needs must) that Chivalry, such as we have it represented in books of Romance, so much posterior to the date of that military institution, took its colour and character from the impressions made on the minds of men by the spirit of crusading into the Holy land? Still it may be true, that Chivalry itself had, properly, another and an earlier origin. And I must think it certainly had, if for no other, yet, for this reason: that, unless the seeds of that spirit, which appeared in the Crusades, had been plentifully sown and indeed grown up into some maturity in the feudal times preceding that event, I see not how it could have been possible for the Western princes to give that politic diversion to their turbulent vassals, which the new hypothesis supposes.

In short, there are TWO DISTINCT PERIODS to be carefully observed, in a deduction of the rise and progress of Chivalry.

The FIRST is that in which the empire was overturned, and the feudal governments were every where introduced on its ruins, by the Northern nations. In this æra, that new policy settled itself in the West, and operated so powerfully as to lay the first foundations, and to furnish the remote causes, of what we know by the name of Chivalry.

The OTHER period is, when these causes had taken a fuller effect, and shewed themselves in that signal enterprize of the Crusades; which not only concurred with the spirit of Chivalry, already pullulating in the minds of men, but brought a prodigious encrease, and gave a singular force and vigour, to all its operations. In this æra, Chivalry took deep root, and at the same time shot up to its full height and size. So that now it was in the state of Virgil’s Tree—

From this last period, the Romancers, whether in prose or verse, derive all their ideas of Chivalry. It was natural for them to do so; for they were best acquainted with that period: and, besides, it suited their design best; for the manners, they were to paint, were then full formed, and so distinctly marked as fitted them for the use of description.

But that the former period, notwithstanding, really gave birth to this institution may be gathered, not only from the reason of the thing, but from the surer information of authentic history. For there are traces of Chivalry, in its most peculiar and characteristic forms, to be found in the age preceding the Crusades; and even justs and tournaments, the image of serious Knight-errantry, were certainly of earlier date than that event, as I had before occasion to observe to you.

Though I think, then, my notion of the rise of Chivalry stands unimpaired, or rather is somewhat illustrated and confirmed, by what the excellent person has opposed to it, yet I could not hold it fair to conceal so specious and well supported an objection from you. You are too generous to take advantage of the arms I put into your hands; and are, besides, so far from any thoughts of combating my system itself, that your concern, it seems, is only to know, where I learned the several particulars, on which I have formed it.

You are willing, you say, to advance on sure grounds; and therefore call upon me to point out to you the authorities, from which I pretend to have collected the several marks and characteristics of true Chivalry.

Your request is reasonable; and I acknowledge the omission, in not acquainting you that my information was taken from its proper source, the old Romances. Not that I shall make a merit with you in having perused these barbarous volumes myself; much less would I impose the ungrateful task upon you. Thanks to the curiosity of certain painful collectors, this knowledge may be obtained at a cheaper rate. And I think it sufficient to refer you to a learned and very elaborate memoir of a French writer, who has put together all that is requisite to be known on this subject. Materials are first laid in, before the architect goes to work; and if the structure, I am here raising out of them, be to your mind, you will not think the worse of it because I pretend not, myself, to have worked in the quarry. In a word, and to drop this magnificent allusion, if I account to you for the rise and genius of Chivalry, it is all you are to expect; for an idea of what Chivalry was in itself, you may have recourse to tom. xx. of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres.

And with this explanation I return, at length, to my proper business.

Supposing my idea of Chivalry to be fairly given, the conjecture I advance on the origin and nature of it, you incline to think, may deserve to be admitted. But you will, perhaps, admit it the more readily, if you reflect, “That there is a remarkable correspondency between the manners of the old heroic times, as painted by their great romancer, Homer, and those which are represented to us in books of modern knight-errantry.” A fact, of which no good account, I believe, can be given but by the assistance of another, not less certain, “That the political state of Greece, in the earlier periods of its story, was similar in many respects to that of Europe, as broken by the feudal system into an infinite number of petty independent governments.”

It is not my design to encroach on the province of the learned person46, to whom I owe this hint, and who hath undertaken, at his leisure, to enlarge upon it. But some few circumstances of agreement between the Heroic and Gothic manners, such as are most obvious and occur to my memory, while I am writing, may be worth putting down, by way of specimen only of what may be expected from a professed inquiry into this curious subject.

And, FIRST, “the military enthusiasm of the Barons is but of a piece with the fanaticism of the Heroes.” Hence the same particularity of description, in the account of battles, wounds, deaths, in the Greek poet, as in the Gothic romancers: hence that perpetual succession of combats and deeds of arms, even to satiety, in the Iliad: and hence that minute curiosity, in the display of the dresses, arms, accoutrements of the combatants, which we find so strange, in that poem. The minds of all men being occupied and in a manner possessed with warlike images and ideas, were much gratified by the poet’s dwelling on the very slightest circumstances of these things, which now, for want of their prejudices, appear cold and unaffecting to modern readers.

But the correspondency holds in more particular considerations. For,

2. “We hear much of Knights-errant encountering Giants, and quelling Savages, in books of Chivalry.”

These Giants were oppressive feudal Lords; and every Lord was to be met with, like the Giant, in his strong hold, or castle. Their dependants of a lower form, who imitated the violence of their superiors, and had not their castles, but their lurking-places, were the Savages of Romance. The greater Lord was called a Giant, for his power; the less a Savage, for his brutality.

All this is shadowed out in the Gothic tales, and sometimes expressed in plain words. The objects of the Knight’s vengeance go indeed by the various names of Giants, Paynims, Saracens, and Savages. But of what family they all are, is clearly seen from the poet’s description:

Here we have the great oppressive Baron very graphically set forth: and the Groom of evil guise is as plainly the Baron’s vassal. The Romancers, we see, took no great liberty with these respectable personages, when they called the one a Giant, and the other a Savage.

“Another terror of the Gothic ages was, Monsters, Dragons, and Serpents.” These stories were received in those days for several reasons: 1. From the vulgar belief of enchantments: 2. From their being reported, on the faith of Eastern tradition, by the adventurers into the Holy Land: 3. In still later times, from the strange things told and believed, on the discovery of the new world.

This last consideration we find employed by Spenser to give an air of probability to his Fairy Tales, in the preface to his second book.

Now in all these respects Greek antiquity very much resembles the Gothic. For what are Homer’s Læstrigons and Cyclops, but bands of lawless savages, with, each of them, a Giant of enormous size at their head? And what are the Grecian Bacchus and Hercules, but Knights-errant, the exact counter-parts of Sir Launcelot and Amadis de Gaule?

For this interpretation we have the authority of our great poet:

Even Plutarch’s life of Theseus reads, throughout, like a modern Romance: and Sir Arthegal himself is hardly his fellow, for righting wrongs and redressing grievances. So that Euripides might well make him say of himself, that he had chosen the profession and calling of a Knight-errant: for this is the sense, and almost the literal construction, of the following verses:

Accordingly, Theseus is a favourite Hero (witness the Knight’s Tale in Chaucer) even with the Romance-writers.

Nay, could the very castle of a Gothic giant be better described than in the words of Homer,

And do not you remember that the Grecian Worthies were, in their day, as famous for encountering Dragons and quelling Monsters of all sorts, as for suppressing Giants?

3. “The oppressions, which it was the glory of the Knight to avenge, were frequently carried on, as we are told, by the charms and enchantments of women.”

These charms, we may suppose, are often metaphorical; as expressing only the blandishments of the sex, by which they either seconded the designs of their Lords, or were enabled to carry on designs for themselves. Sometimes they are taken to be real; the ignorance of those ages acquiescing in such conceits.

And are not these stories matched by those of Calypso and Circe, the enchantresses of the Greek poet?

Still there are conformities more directly to our purpose.

4. “Robbery and piracy were honourable in both; so far were they from reflecting any discredit on the ancient or modern redressers of wrongs.”

What account can be given of this odd circumstance, but that, in the feudal times and in the early days of Greece, when government was weak, and unable to redress the frequent injuries of petty sovereigns, it would be glorious for private adventurers to undertake this work; and, if they could accomplish it in no other way, to pay them in kind by downright plunder and rapine?

This, in effect, is the account given us, of the same disposition of the old Germans, by Cæsar: “Latrocinia,” says he, “nullam habent infamiam, quæ extra fines cujusque civitatis fiunt.” And the reason appears from what he had just told us—“in pace, nullus est communis magistratus; sed principes regionum atque pagorum inter suos jus dicunt, controversiasque minuunt.” De Bello Gall. l. vi. § 21.

5. Their manners, in another respect, were the same. “Bastardy was in credit with both.” They were extremely watchful over the chastity of their own women; but such as they could seize upon in the enemy’s quarter were lawful prize. Or, if at any time they transgressed in this sort at home, the heroic ages were complaisant enough to cover the fault by an ingenious fiction. The offspring was reputed divine.

Nay, so far did they carry their indulgence to this commerce, that their greatest Heroes were the fruit of Goddesses approached by mortals; just as we hear of the doughtiest Knights being born of Fairies.

6. Is it not strange, that, together with the greatest fierceness and savageness of character, “the utmost generosity, hospitality, and courtesy, should be imputed to the heroic ages?” Achilles was at once the most relentless, vindictive, implacable, and the friendliest of men.

We have the very same representation in the Gothic Romances, where it is almost true what Butler says humorously of these benign heroes, that

How are these contradictions, in the characters of the ancient and modern men of arms, to be reconciled, but by observing that, as in those lawless times dangers and distresses of all sorts abounded, there would be the same demand for compassion, gentleness, and generous attachments to the unfortunate, those especially of their own clan, as of resentment, rage, and animosity against their enemies?

7. Again: consider the martial Games, which ancient Greece delighted to celebrate on great and solemn occasions: and see if they had not the same origin, and the same purpose, as the Tournaments of the Gothic warriors.

8. Lastly, “the passion for adventures, so natural in their situation, would be as naturally attended with the love of praise and glory.”

Hence the same encouragement, in the old Greek and Gothic times, to panegyrists and poets; the Bards being as welcome to the tables of the feudal Lords, as the ΑΟΙΔΟΙ of old, to those of the Grecian Heroes.

And, as the same causes ever produce the same effects, we find that, even so late as Elizabeth’s reign, the savage Irish (who were much in the state of the ancient Greeks, living under the anarchy, rather than government, of their numberless puny chiefs) had their Rhymers in principal estimation. It was for the reason just given, for the honour of their panegyrics on their fierce adventures and successes. And thus it was in Greece:

LETTER V.

The purpose of the casual hints, suggested in my last letter, was only to shew that the resemblance between the Heroic and Gothic ages is great: so great that the observation of it did not escape the old Romancers themselves, with whom, as an ingenious critic observes, the siege of Thebes and Trojan war were favourite stories; the characters and incidents of which they were mixing perpetually with their Romances47. And to this persuasion and practice of the Romance-writers Cervantes plainly alludes, when he makes Don Quixote say——If the stories of Chivalry be lies, so must it also be, that there ever was a Hector, or an Achilles, or a Trojan war48—a sly stroke of satire, by which this mortal foe of Chivalry would, I suppose, insinuate that the Grecian Romances were just as extravagant and as little credible, as the Gothic. Or, whatever his purpose might be, the resemblance between them, you see, is confessed, and hath now been shewn in so many instances that there will hardly be any doubt of it. And though you say true, that ignorance and barbarity itself might account for some circumstances of this resemblance; yet the parallel would hardly have held so long, and run so closely, if the civil condition of both had not been much the same.

So that when we see a sort of Chivalry, springing up among the Greeks, who were confessedly in a state resembling that of the feudal barons, and attended by the like symptoms and effects, is it not fair to conclude that the Chivalry of the Gothic times was owing to that common corresponding state, and received its character from it?

And this circumstance, by the way, accounts for the constant mixture, which the modern critic esteems so monstrous, of Pagan fable with the fairy tales of Romance. The passion for ancient learning, just then revived, might seduce the classic poets, such as Spenser and Tasso for instance, into this practice; but the similar turn and genius of ancient manners, and of the fictions founded upon them, would make it appear easy and natural in all.

I am aware, as you object to me, that, in the affair of religion and gallantry, the resemblance between the Hero and Knight is not so striking.

But the religious character of the Knight was an accident of the times, and no proper effect of his civil condition.

And that his devotion for the sex should so far surpass that of the Hero, is a fresh confirmation of my system.

For, though much, no doubt, might be owing to the different humour and genius of the East and West, antecedent to any customs and forms of government, and independent of them; yet the consideration had of the females in the feudal constitution will, of itself, account for this difference. It made them capable of succeeding to fiefs as well as the men. And does not one see, on the instant, what respect and dependence this privilege would draw upon them?

It was of mighty consequence who should obtain the grace of a rich heiress. And though, in the strict feudal times, she was supposed to be in the power and disposal of her superior Lord, yet this rigid state of things did not last long; and, while it did last, could not abate much of the homage that would be paid to the fair feudatary.

Thus, when interest had begun the habit, the language of love and flattery would soon do the rest. And to what that language tended, you may see by the constant strain of the Romances themselves. Some distressed damsel was the spring and mover of every Knight’s adventure. She was to be rescued by his arms, or won by the fame and admiration of his prowess.

The plain meaning of all which was this: that, as in those turbulent feudal times a protector was necessary to the weakness of the sex, so the courteous and valorous knight was to approve himself fully qualified for that office. And we find, he had other motives to set him on work than the mere charms and graces, though ever so bewitching, of the person addressed.

Hence then, as I suppose, the custom was introduced: and, when introduced, you will hardly wonder it should operate much longer and further than the reason may seem to require, on which it was founded.

If you still insist that I carry this matter too far, and that, in fact, the introduction of the female succession into fiefs was too late to justify me in accounting for the rise of feudal gallantry from that circumstance; you will only teach me to frame my answer in a more accurate manner.

First then, I shall confess that the way to avoid all confusion on this subject would be, to distinguish carefully between the state of things in the early feudal times, and that in the later, when the genius of the feudal law was much changed and corrupted; and that, whoever would go to the bottom of this affair, should keep a constant eye on this reasonable distinction.

But then, secondly, I may observe that this distinction is the less necessary to be attended to in the present case, because the law of female succession, whenever it was introduced, had certainly taken place long before the Romancers wrote, from whom we derive all our ideas of the feudal gallantry. So that, if you take their word for the gallantry of those times, you may very consistently, if you please, accept my account of it. For it is but supposing that the feudal gallantry, such as they paint it, was the offspring of that privilege, such as they saw the ladies then possess, of feudal succession. And the connexion between these two things is so close and so natural, that we cannot be much mistaken in deducing the one from the other.

In conclusion of this topic, I must just observe to you, that the two poems of Homer express in the liveliest manner, and were intended to expose, the capital mischiefs and inconveniencies arising from the political state of old Greece; the Iliad, the dissensions that naturally spring up amongst a number of independent chiefs; and the Odyssey, the insolence of their greater subjects, more especially when unrestrained by the presence of their sovereign.

These were the subjects of his pen. And can any thing more exactly resemble the condition of the feudal times, when, on occasion of any great enterprise, as that of the Crusades, the designs of the confederate Christian states were perpetually frustrated, or interrupted at least, by the dissensions of their leaders; and their affairs at home as perpetually distressed and disordered by domestic licence, and the rebellious usurpations of their greater vassals?

It is true, as to the charge of domestic licence, so exactly does the parallel run between old Greece and old England, I find one exception to it, in each country: and that one, a Romance-critic would shew himself very uncourteous, if he did not take a pleasure to celebrate. Guy, the renowned earl of Warwick, old stories say, returned from the holy wars to his lady in the disguise of a pilgrim or beggar, as Ulysses did to Penelope. What the suspicions were of the Knight and the Hero, the contrivance itself but too plainly declares. But their fears were groundless in both cases. Only the Knight seems to have had the advantage of the Prince of Ithaca: for, instead of rioting suitors to drive out of his castle, he had only to contemplate his good lady in the peaceful and pious office of distributing daily alms to XIII poor men.

No conclusion, however, is to be drawn from a single instance; and, in general, it is said, the adventurers into the Holy Land could no more depend on the fidelity of their spouses, than of their vassals. So that, in all respects, Jerusalem was to the European, what Troy had been to the Grecian heroes. And, though the Odyssey found no rival among the Gothic poems, you will think it natural enough from these corresponding circumstances, that Tasso’s immortal work should be planned upon the model of the Iliad.

LETTER VI.

Let it be no surprise to you that, in the close of my last Letter, I presumed to bring the Gierusalemme liberata into competition with the Iliad.

So far as the heroic and Gothic manners are the same, the pictures of each, if well taken, must be equally entertaining. But I go further, and maintain that the circumstances, in which they differ, are clearly to the advantage of the Gothic designers.

You see, my purpose is to lead you from this forgotten Chivalry to a more amusing subject; I mean, the Poetry we still read, though it was founded upon it.

Much has been said, and with great truth, of the felicity of Homer’s age, for poetical manners. But, as Homer was a citizen of the world, when he had seen in Greece, on the one hand, the manners he has described, could he, on the other hand, have seen in the West the manners of the feudal ages, I make no doubt but he would certainly have preferred the latter. And the grounds of this preference would, I suppose, have been, “the improved gallantry of the Gothic knights; and the superior solemnity of their superstitions.”

If any great poet, like Homer, had flourished in these times, and given the feudal manners from the life (for, after all, Spenser and Tasso came too late, and it was impossible for them to paint truly and perfectly what was no longer seen or believed); this preference, I persuade myself, had been very sensible. But their fortune was not so happy:

As it is, we may take a guess of what the subject was capable of affording to real genius, from the rude sketches we have of it in the old Romancers. And it is but looking into any of them to be convinced, that the Gallantry, which inspired the feudal times, was of a nature to furnish the poet with finer scenes and subjects of description in every view, than the simple and uncontrolled barbarity of the Grecian.

The principal entertainment arising from the delineation of these consists in the exercise of the boisterous passions, which are provoked and kept alive, from one end of the Iliad to the other, by every imaginable scene of rage, revenge, and slaughter. In the other, together with these, the gentler and more humane affections are awakened in us by the most interesting displays of love and friendship; of love, elevated to its noblest heights; and of friendship, operating on the purest motives. The mere variety of these paintings is a relief to the reader, as well as writer. But their beauty, novelty, and pathos, give them a vast advantage, on the comparison.

So that, on the whole, though the spirit, passions, rapine, and violence, of the two sets of manners were equal, yet there was an elegance, a variety, a dignity in the feudal, which the other wanted.

As to RELIGIOUS MACHINERY, perhaps the popular system of each was equally remote from reason; yet the latter had something in it more amusing, as well as more awakening to the imagination.

The current popular tales of Elves and Fairies were even fitter to take the credulous mind, and charm it into a willing admiration of the specious miracles which wayward fancy delights in, than those of the old traditionary rabble of Pagan divinities. And then, for the more solemn fancies of witchcraft and incantation, the Gothic are above measure striking and terrible.

You will tell me, perhaps, that these fancies, as terrible as they were, are but of a piece with those of Pagan superstition; and that nothing can exceed what the classic writers have related or feigned of its magic and necromantic horrors.

To spare you the trouble of mustering up against me all that your extensive knowledge of antiquity would furnish, let me confess to you that many of the ancient poets have occasionally adorned this theme. If, among twenty others, I select only the names of Ovid, Seneca, and Lucan, it is, because these writers, by the character of their genius, were best qualified for the task, and have, besides, exerted their whole strength upon it. Lucan, especially, has drawn out all the pomp of his eloquence in celebrating those Thessalian Charms,

Yet STILL I pretend to shew you that all his prodigies, fall short of the Gothic: and you will come the less reluctantly into my sentiments, if you reflect, “That the thick and troubled stream of superstition, which flowed so plentifully in the classic ages, has been constantly deepening and darkening by the confluence of those supplies, which ignorance and corrupted religion have poured in upon it.”

First, you will call to mind that all the gloomy visions of dæmons and spirits, which sprung out of the Alexandrian or Platonic philosophy, were in the later ages of Paganism engrafted on the old stock of classic superstition. These portentous dreams, new hatched to the woful time, as Shakespear speaks, enabled Apuleius to outdo Lucan himself, in some of his magic scenes and exhibitions.

Next, you will observe that a fresh and exhaustless swarm of the direst superstitions took their birth in the frozen regions of the North, and were naturally enough conceived in the imaginations of a people involved in tenfold darkness; I mean, in the thickest shades of ignorance, as well as in the gloom of their comfortless woods and forests. I call these the direst superstitions; for though the South and East may have produced some that shew more wild and fantastic, yet those of the North have ever been of a more sombrous and horrid aspect, agreeably to the singular circumstances and situation of that savage and benighted people.

These dismal fancies, which the barbarians carried out with them in their migrations into the North-west, took the readier and the faster hold of men’s minds, from the kindred darkness into which the Western world was then fallen, and from the desolation (so apt to engender all fearful conceits and apprehensions) which every where attended the incursions of those ravagers.

Lastly, before the Romancers applied themselves to dress up these dreadful stories, Christian superstition had grown to its height, and had transferred on the magic system all its additional and supernumerary horrors.

Taking, now, the whole together, you will clearly see what we are to conclude of the Gothic system of prodigy and enchantment; which was not so properly a single system, as the aggregate,

For, to the frightful forms of ancient necromancy (which easily travelled down to us, when the fairer offspring of pagan invention lost its way, or was swallowed up in the general darkness of the barbarous ages) were now joined the hideous phantasms which had terrified the Northern nations; and, to complete the horrid groupe, with these were incorporated the still more tremendous spectres of Christian superstition.

In this state of things, as I said, the Romancers went to work; and with these multiplied images of terror on their minds, you will conclude, without being at the pains to form particular comparisons, that they must manage ill indeed, not to surpass, in this walk of magical incantation, the original classic fablers.

But, if you require a comparison, I can tell you where it is to be made, with much ease, and to great advantage: I mean, in Shakespear’s Macbeth, where you will find (as his best critic observes) “the Danish or Northern, intermixed with the Greek and Roman enchantments; and all these worked up together with a sufficient quantity of our own country superstitions. So that Shakespear’s Witch-Scenes (as the same writer adds) are like the charms they prepare in one of them: where the ingredients are gathered from every thing shocking in the natural world; as here, from every thing absurd in the moral.”

Or, if you suspect this instance, as deriving somewhat of its force and plausibility from the magic hand of this critic, you may turn to another in a great poet of that time; who has been at the pains to make the comparison himself, and whose word, as he gives it in honest prose, may surely be taken.

In a work of B. Jonson, which he calls The Masque of Queens, there are some Witch-scenes; written with singular care, and in emulation, as it may seem, of Shakespear’s; but certainly with the view (for so he tells us himself) of reconciling the practice of antiquity to the neoteric, and making it familiar with our popular witchcraft.

This Masque is accompanied with notes of the learned author, who had rifled all the stores of ancient and modern Dæmonomagy, to furnish out his entertainment; and who takes care to inform us, under each head, whence he had fetched the ingredients, out of which it is compounded.

In this elaborate work of Jonson you have, then, an easy opportunity of comparing the ancient with the modern magic. And though, as he was an idolater of the ancients, you will expect him to draw freely from that source, yet from the large use he makes, too, of his other more recent authorities, you will perceive that some of the darkest shades of his picture are owing to hints and circumstances which he had catched, and could only catch, from the Gothic enchantments. Even such of these circumstances, as, taken by themselves, seem of less moment, should not be overlooked, since (as the poet well observes of them) though they be but minutes in ceremony, yet they make the act more dark and full of horror.

Thus MUCH, then, may serve for a cast of Shakespear’s and Jonson’s magic: abundantly sufficient, I must think, to convince you of the superiority of the Gothic charms and incantations, to the classic.

Though, after all, the conclusion is not to be drawn so much from particular passages, as from the general impression left on our minds, in reading the ancient and modern poets. And this is so much in favour of the latter, that Mr. Addison scruples not to say, “The ancients have not much of this poetry among them; for indeed (continues he) almost the whole substance of it owes its original to the darkness and superstition of later ages—Our forefathers looked upon nature with more reverence and horror, before the world was enlightened by learning and philosophy; and loved to astonish themselves with the apprehensions of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and inchantments. There was not a village in England, that had not a ghost in it; the church-yards were all haunted; every large common had a circle of fairies belonging to it; and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with, who had not seen a spirit.”

We are upon enchanted ground, my friend; and you are to think yourself well used, that I detain you no longer in this fearful circle. The glympse, you have had of it, will help your imagination to conceive the rest. And without more words you will readily apprehend that the fancies of our modern bards are not only more gallant, but, on a change of the scene, more sublime, more terrible, more alarming, than those of the classic fablers. In a word, you will find that the manners they paint, and the superstitions they adopt, are the more poetical for being Gothic.

LETTER VII.

But nothing shews the difference of the two systems under consideration more plainly, than the effect they really had on the Two greatest of our Poets; at least the two which an English reader is most fond to compare with Homer; I mean, Spenser and Milton.

It is not to be doubted but that each of these bards had kindled his poetic fire from classic fables. So that, of course, their prejudices would lie that way. Yet they both appear, when most inflamed, to have been more particularly rapt with the Gothic fables of Chivalry.

Spenser, though he had been long nourished with the spirit and substance of Homer and Virgil, chose the times of Chivalry for his theme, and Fairy Land for the scene of his fictions. He could have planned, no doubt, an heroic design on the exact classic model: or, he might have trimmed between the Gothic and classic, as his contemporary Tasso did. But the charms of fairy prevailed. And if any think, he was seduced by Ariosto into this choice, they should consider that it could be only for the sake of his subject; for the genius and character of these poets was widely different.

Under this idea then of a Gothic, not classical poem, the Fairy Queen is to be read and criticized. And on these principles it would not be difficult to unfold its merit in another way than has been hitherto attempted.

Milton, it is true, preferred the classic model to the Gothic. But it was after long hesitation; and his favourite subject was Arthur and his Knights of the round table. On this he had fixed for the greater part of his life. What led him to change his mind was, partly, as I suppose, his growing fondness for religious subjects; partly, his ambition to take a different rout from Spenser; but chiefly perhaps, the discredit into which the stories of Chivalry had now fallen by the immortal satire of Cervantes. Yet we see through all his poetry, where his enthusiasm flames out most, a certain predilection for the legends of Chivalry before the fables of Greece.

This circumstance, you know, has given offence to the austerer and more mechanical critics. They are ready to censure his judgment, as juvenile and unformed, when they see him so delighted, on all occasions, with the Gothic romances. But do these censors imagine that Milton did not perceive the defects of these works, as well as they? No: it was not the composition of books of Chivalry, but the manners described in them, that took his fancy; as appears from his Allegro—

And when in the Penseroso he draws, by a fine contrivance, the same kind of image to sooth melancholy which he had before given to excite mirth, he indeed extols an author, or two, of these romances, as he had before, in general, extolled the subject of them: but they are authors worthy of his praise; not the writers of Amadis, and Sir Launcelot of the Lake; but Fairy Spenser, and Chaucer himself, who has left an unfinished story on the Gothic or feudal model.

The conduct then of these two poets may incline us to think with more respect, than is commonly done, of the Gothic manners; I mean, as adapted to the uses of the greater poetry.

I shall add nothing to what I before observed of Shakespear, because the sublimity (the divinity, let it be, if nothing else will serve) of his genius kept no certain rout, but rambled at hazard into all the regions of human life and manners. So that we can hardly say what he preferred, or what he rejected, on full deliberation. Yet one thing is clear, that even he is greater when he uses Gothic manners and machinery, than when he employs classical: which brings us again to the same point, that the former have, by their nature and genius, the advantage of the latter in producing the sublime.

LETTER VIII.

I spoke “of criticizing Spenser’s poem under the idea, not of a classical, but Gothic composition.”

It is certain, much light might be thrown on that singular work, were an able critic to consider it in this view. For instance, he might go some way towards explaining, perhaps justifying, the general plan and conduct of the Fairy Queen, which, to classical readers, has appeared indefensible.

I have taken the fancy, with your leave, to try my hand on this curious subject.

When an architect examines a Gothic structure by Grecian rules, he finds nothing but deformity. But the Gothic architecture has its own rules, by which when it comes to be examined, it is seen to have its merit, as well as the Grecian. The question is not, which of the two is conducted in the simplest or truest taste: but whether there be not sense and design in both, when scrutinized by the laws on which each is projected.

The same observation holds of the two sorts of poetry. Judge of the Fairy Queen by the classic models, and you are shocked with its disorder: consider it with an eye to its Gothic original, and you find it regular. The unity and simplicity of the former are more complete: but the latter has that sort of unity and simplicity, which results from its nature.

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

It was usual, in the days of knight-errantry, at the holding of any great feast, for knights to appear before the prince, who presided at it, and claim the privilege of being sent on any adventure to which the solemnity might give occasion. For it was supposed that, when such a throng of knights and barons bold, as Milton speaks of, were got together, the distressed would flock in from all quarters, as to a place where they knew they might find and claim redress for all their grievances.

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 castles of the great, on any extraordinary festival or solemnity: of which, if you want an instance, I refer you to the description of a feast made at Lisle in 1453, in the court of Philip the good, duke of Burgundy, for a Crusade against the Turks: as you may find it given at large in the memoirs of Matthieu de Conci, Olivier de la Marche, and Monstrelet.

That feast was held for twelve days: and each day was distinguished by the claim and allowance of some adventure.

Now, laying down this practice as a foundation for the poet’s design, you will see how properly the Fairy Queen is conducted.

----“I devise,” says the poet himself in his letter to Sir W. Raleigh, “that the Fairy Queen kept her annual feaste xii days: upon which xii several days, the occasions of the xii several adventures happened; which being undertaken by xii several knights, are in these xii books severally handled.”

Here you have the poet delivering his own method, and the reason of it. It arose out of the order of his subject. And would you desire a better reason for his choice?

Yes; you will say, a poet’s method is not that of his subject. 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 historical, and the historiographer: the reason of which is drawn from the nature of Epic composition itself, and holds equally let the subject be what it will, and whatever the system of manners be, on which it is conducted. Gothic or Classic makes no difference in this respect.

But the case is not the same with regard to the general plan of a work, or what may be called the order of distribution, which is and must be governed by the subject-matter itself. It was as requisite for the Fairy Queen to consist of the adventures of twelve Knights, as for the Odyssey to be confined to the adventures of one Hero: justice had otherwise not been done to his subject.

So that if you will say any thing against the poet’s method, you must say that he should not have chosen this subject. But this objection arises from your classic ideas of Unity, which have no place here; and are in every view foreign to the purpose, if the poet has found means to give his work, though consisting of many parts, the advantage of Unity. For in some 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 say, It consists in the relation of its several 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 issued forth on their adventures on the breaking up of this annual feast: and the next annual feast, we are to suppose, is to bring them together again from the atchievement of their several charges.

This, it is true, is not the classic Unity, which consists in the representation of one entire action: but it is an Unity of another sort, an unity resulting from the respect which a number of related actions have to one common purpose. In other words, it is an unity of design, and not of action.

This Gothic method of design in poetry may be, in some sort, illustrated by what is called the Gothic method of design in gardening. A wood or grove cut out into many separate avenues or glades was among the most favourite of the works of art, which our fathers attempted in this species of cultivation. These walks were distinct from each other, had each their several destination, and terminated on their own proper objects. Yet the whole was brought together and considered under one view, by the relation which these various openings had, not to each other, but to their common and concurrent center. You and I are, perhaps, agreed that this sort of gardening is not of so true a taste as that which Kent and Nature have brought us acquainted with; where the supreme art of the designer consists in disposing his ground and objects into an entire landskip; and grouping them, if I may use the term, in so easy a manner, that the careless observer, though he be taken with the symmetry of the whole, discovers no art in the combination:

This, I say, may be the truest taste in gardening, because the simplest: yet there is a manifest regard to unity in the other method; which has had its admirers, as it may have again, and is certainly not without its design and beauty.

But to return to our poet. Thus far he drew from Gothic ideas; and these ideas, I think, would lead him no further. But, as Spenser knew what belonged to classic composition, he was tempted to tie his subject still closer together by one expedient of his own, and by another taken from his classic models.

His own was, to interrupt the proper story of each book, by dispersing it into several; involving by this means, and as it were intertwisting the several actions together, in order to give something like the appearance of one action to his twelve adventures. And for this conduct, as absurd as it seems, he had some great examples in the Italian poets, though, I believe, they were led into it by different motives.

The other expedient, which he borrowed from the classics, was, by adopting one superior character, which should be seen throughout. Prince Arthur, who had a separate adventure of his own, was to have his part in each of the other; and thus several actions were to be embodied by the interest which one principal Hero had in them all. It is even observable, that Spenser gives this adventure of Prince Arthur, in quest of Gloriana, as the proper subject of his poem. And upon this idea the late learned editor of the Fairy Queen has attempted, but, I think, without success, to defend the unity and simplicity of its fable. The truth was, the violence of classic prejudices forced the poet to affect this appearance of unity, though in contradiction to his Gothic system. And, as far as we can judge of the tenour of the whole work from the finished half of it, the adventure of Prince Arthur, whatever the author pretended, and his critic too easily believed, was but an after-thought; and, at least, with regard to the historical fable, which we are now considering, was only one of the expedients by which he would conceal the disorder of his Gothic plan.

And if this was his design, I will venture to say that both his expedients were injudicious. Their purpose was, to ally two things, in nature incompatible, the Gothic, and the classic unity; the effect of which misalliance was to discover and expose the nakedness of the Gothic.

I am of opinion then, considering the Fairy Queen as an epic or narrative poem constructed on Gothic ideas, that the poet had done well to affect no other unity than that of design, by which his subject was connected. But his poem is not simply narrative; it is throughout allegorical: he calls it a perpetual allegory or dark conceit: and this character, for reasons I may have occasion to observe hereafter, was even predominant in the Fairy Queen. His narration is subservient to his moral, and but serves to colour it. This he tells us himself at setting out,

that is, shall serve for a vehicle, or instrument to convey the moral.

Now under this idea, the Unity of the Fairy Queen is more apparent. His twelve knights are to exemplify as many virtues, out of which one illustrious character is to be composed. And in this view the part of Prince Arthur in each book becomes essential, and yet not principal; exactly, as the poet has contrived it. They who rest in the literal story, that is, who criticize it on the footing of a narrative poem, have constantly objected to this management. They say, it necessarily breaks the unity of design. Prince Arthur, they affirm, should either have had no part in the other adventures, or he should have had the chief part. He should either have done nothing, or more. This objection I find insisted upon by Spenser’s best critic49; and, I think, the objection is unanswerable; at least, I know of nothing that can be said to remove it, but what I have supposed above might be the purpose of the poet, and which I myself have rejected as insufficient.

But how faulty soever this conduct be in the literal story, it is perfectly right in the moral: and that for an obvious reason, though his critics seem not to have been aware of it. His chief hero was not to have the twelve virtues in the degree in which the knights had, each of them, their own (such a character would be a monster;) but he was to have so much of each as was requisite to form his superior character. Each virtue, in its perfection, is exemplified in its own knight; they are all, in a due degree, concentrated in Prince Arthur.

This was the poet’s moral: and what way of expressing this moral in the history, but by making Prince Arthur appear in each adventure, and in a manner subordinate to its proper hero? Thus, though inferior to each in his own specific virtue, he is superior to all by uniting the whole circle of their virtues in himself: and thus he arrives, at length, at the possession of that bright form of Glory, whose ravishing beauty, as seen in a dream or vision, had led him out into these miraculous adventures in the land of Fairy.

The conclusion is, that, as an allegorical poem, the method of the Fairy Queen is governed by the justness of the moral: as a narrative poem, it is conducted on the ideas and usages of Chivalry. In either view, if taken by itself, the plan is defensible. But from the union of the two designs there arises a perplexity and confusion, which is the proper, and only considerable, defect of this extraordinary poem.

LETTER IX.

No doubt, Spenser might have taken one single adventure, of the Twelve, for the subject of his Poem; or he might have given the principal part in every adventure to Prince Arthur. By this means his fable had been of the classic kind, and its unity as strict as that of Homer and Virgil.

All this the poet knew very well; but his purpose was not to write a classic poem. He chose to adorn a Gothic story; and, to be consistent throughout, he chose that the form of his work should be of a piece with his subject.

Did the poet do right in this? I cannot tell: but, comparing his work with that of another great poet, who followed the system you seem to recommend, I see no reason to be peremptory in condemning his judgment.

The example of this poet deserves to be considered. It will afford, at least, a fresh confirmation of the point, I principally insist upon, the pre-eminence of the Gothic manners and fictions, as adapted to the ends of poetry, above the classic.

I observed of the famous Torquato Tasso, that, coming into the world a little of the latest for the success of the pure Gothic manner, he thought fit to trim between that and the classic model.

It was lucky for his fame, that he did so. For the Gothic fables falling every day more and more into contempt, and the learning of the times, throughout all Europe, taking a classic turn, the reputation of his work has been chiefly founded on the strong resemblance it has to the ancient Epic poems. His fable is conducted in the spirit of the Iliad; and with a strict regard to that unity of action which we admire in Homer and Virgil.

But this is not all; we find a studied and close imitation of those poets, in many of the smaller parts, in the minuter incidents, and even in the descriptions and similes of his poem.

The classic reader was pleased with this deference to the public taste: he saw with delight the favourite beauties of Homer and Virgil reflected in the Italian poet; and was almost ready to excuse, for the sake of these, his magic tales and fairy enchantments.

I said, was almost ready; for the offence given by these tales to the more fashionable sort of critics was so great, that nothing, I believe, could make full amends, in their judgment, for such extravagancies.

However, by this means, the Gierusalemme Liberata made its fortune amongst the French wits, who have constantly cried it up above the Orlando Furioso, and principally for this reason, that Tasso was more classical in his fable, and more sparing in the wonders of Gothic fiction, than his predecessor.

The Italians have indeed a predilection for their elder bard; whether from their prejudice for his subject; their admiration of his language; the richness of his invention; the comic air of his style and manner; or from whatever other reason.

Be this as it will, the French criticism has carried it before the Italian, with the rest of Europe. This dextrous people have found means to lead the taste, as well as set the fashions, of their neighbours: and Ariosto ranks but little higher than the rudest Romancer in the opinion of those who take their notions of these things from their writers.

But the same principle, which made them give Tasso the preference to Ariosto, has led them by degrees to think very unfavourably of Tasso himself. The mixture of the Gothic manner in his work has not been forgiven. It has sunk the credit of all the rest; and some instances of false taste in the expression of his sentiments, detected by their nicer critics, have brought matters to that pass, that, with their good will, Tasso himself should now follow the fate of Ariosto.

I will not say, that a little national envy did not perhaps mix itself with their other reasons for undervaluing this great poet. They aspired to a sort of supremacy in letters; and finding the Italian language and its best writers standing in their way, they have spared no pains to lower the estimation of both.

Whatever their inducements were, they succeeded but too well in their attempt. Our obsequious and over-modest critics were run down by their authority. Their taste of letters, with some worse things, was brought among us at the Restoration. Their language, their manners, nay their very prejudices, were adopted by our polite king and his royalists. And the more fashionable wits, of course, set their fancies, as my Lord Molesworth tells us the people of Copenhagen in his time did their clocks, by the court-standard.

Sir W. Davenant opened the way to this new sort of criticism in a very elaborate preface to Gondibert; and his philosophic friend, Mr. Hobbes, lent his best assistance towards establishing the credit of it. These two fine letters contain, indeed, the substance of whatever has been since written on the subject. Succeeding wits and critics did no more than echo their language. It grew into a sort of cant, with which Rymer, and the rest of that school, filled their flimsy essays and rambling prefaces.

Our noble critic himself50 condescended to take up this trite theme: and it is not to be told with what alacrity and self-complacency he flourishes upon it. The Gothic manner, as he calls it, is the favourite object of his raillery; which is never more lively or pointed, than when it exposes that “bad taste which makes us prefer an Ariosto to a Virgil, and a Romance (without doubt he meant, of Tasso) to an Iliad.” Truly, this critical sin requires an expiation; which yet is easily made by subscribing to his sentence, “That the French indeed may boast of legitimate authors of a just relish; but that the Italian are good for nothing but to corrupt the taste of those who have had no familiarity with the noble antients51.”

This ingenious nobleman is, himself, one of the gallant votaries he sometimes makes himself so merry with. He is perfectly enamoured of his noble ancients; and will fight with any man who contends, not that his Lordship’s mistress is not fair, but that his own is fair also.

It is certain the French wits benefited by this foible. For pretending, in great modesty, to have formed themselves on the pure taste of his noble ancients, they easily drew his Lordship over to their party: while the Italians, more stubbornly pretending to a taste of their own, and chusing to lye for themselves, instead of adopting the authorised lyes of Greece, were justly exposed to his resentment.

Such was the address of the French writers, and such their triumphs over the poor Italians.

It must be owned, indeed, they had every advantage on their side, in this contest with their masters. The taste and learning of Italy had been long on the decline; and the fine writers under Louis XIV. were every day advancing the French language, such as it is (simple, clear, exact, that is, fit for business and conversation; but for that reason, besides its total want of numbers, absolutely unsuited to the genius of the greater poetry), towards its last perfection. The purity of the ancient manner became well understood, and it was the pride of their best critics to expose every instance of false taste in the modern writers. The Italian, it is certain, could not stand so severe a scrutiny. But they had escaped better, if the most fashionable of the French poets had not, at the same time, been their best critic.

A lucky word in a verse, which sounds well and every body gets by heart, goes further than a volume of just criticism. In short, the exact, but cold Boileau happened to say something of the clinquant of Tasso; and the magic of this word, like the report of Astolfo’s horn in Ariosto, overturned at once the solid and well-built reputation of the Italian poetry.

It is not perhaps strange that this potent word should do its business in France. What was less to be expected, it put us into a fright on this side the water. Mr. Addison, who gave the law in taste here, took it up, and sent it about the kingdom in his polite and popular essays52. It became a sort of watchword among the critics; and, on the sudden, nothing was heard, on all sides, but the clinquant of Tasso.

After all, these two respectable writers might not intend the mischief they were doing. The observation was just; but was extended much further than they meant, by their witless followers and admirers. The effect was, as I said, that the Italian poetry was rejected in the gross, by virtue of this censure; though the authors of it had said no more than this, “that their best poet had some false thoughts, and dealt, as they supposed, too much in incredible fiction.”

I leave you to make your own reflexions on this short history of the Italian poetry. It is not my design to be its apologist in all respects. However, with regard to the first of these charges, I presume to say, that, as just as it is in the sense in which I persuade myself it was intended, there are more instances of natural sentiment, and of that divine simplicity we admire in the ancients, even in Guarini’s Pastor Fido, than in the best of the French poets.

And as to the last charge, I pretend to shew you, in my next Letter, that it implies no fault at all in the Italian poets.

LETTER X.

Chi non sa che cosa sia Italia?—If this question could ever be reasonably asked on any occasion, it must surely be when the wit and poetry of that people were under consideration. The enchanting sweetness of their tongue, the richness of their invention, the fire and elevation of their genius, the splendour of their expression on great subjects, and the native simplicity of their sentiments on affecting ones; all these are such manifest advantages on the side of the Italian poets, as should seem to command our highest admiration of their great and capital works.

Yet a different language has been held by our finer critics. And, in particular, you hear it commonly said of the tales of Fairy, which they first and principally adorned, “that they are extravagant and absurd; that they surpass all bounds, not of truth only, but of probability; and look more like the dreams of children, than the manly inventions of poets.”

All this, and more, has been said; and, if truly said, who would not lament

For they are not the cold fancies of plebeian poets, but the golden dreams of Ariosto, the celestial visions of Tasso, that are thus derided.

But now, as to the extravagance of these fictions, it is frequently, I believe, much less than these laughers apprehend.

To give an instance or two, of this sort.

One of the strangest circumstances in those books, is that of the women-warriors, with which they all abound. Butler, in his Hudibras, who saw it only in the light of a poetical invention, ridicules it, as a most unnatural idea, with great spirit. Yet in this representation, they did but copy from the manners of the times. Anna Comnena tells us, in the life of her father, that the wife of Robert the Norman fought side by side with her husband, in his battles; that she would rally the flying soldiers, and lead them back to the charge: and Nicetas observes, that, in the time of Manuel Comnena, there were in one Crusade many women, armed like men, on horseback.

What think you now of Tasso’s Clarinda, whose prodigies of valour I dare say you have often laughed at? Or, rather, what think you of that constant pair,

Again: what can be more absurd and incredible, it is often said, than the vast armies we read of in Romance? a circumstance, to which Milton scruples not to allude in those lines of his Paradise Regained—

The classical reader is much scandalized on these occasions, and never fails to cry out on the impudence of these lying fablers. Yet if he did but reflect on the prodigious swarms which Europe sent out in the Crusades, and that the transactions of those days furnished the Romance-writers with their ideas and images, he would see that the marvellous in such stories was modest enough, and did not very much exceed the strict bounds of historical representation.

The first army, for instance, that marched for the Holy Land, even after all the losses it had sustained by the way, amounted, we are told, when it came to be mustered in the plains of Asia, to no less than seven hundred thousand fighting men: a number, which would almost have satisfied the Romancer’s keenest appetite for wonder and amplification.

A third instance may be thought still more remarkable.

“We read perpetually of walls of fire raised by magical art to stop the progress of knights-errant. In Tasso, the wizard Ismeno guards the inchanted forest with walls of fire. In the Orlando Inamorato, L. III. c. i. Mandricardo is endeavoured to be stopped by enchanted flames; but he makes his way through all.”

Thus far the learned editor of the Fairy Queen [Notes on B. III. C. xi. s. 25.] who contents himself, like a good Romance-critic, with observing the fact, without the irreverence of presuming to account for it. But if the profane will not be kept within this decent reserve, we may give them to understand, that this fancy, as wild as it appears, had some foundation in truth. For I make no question but these fires, raised by magical art, to stop the progress of assailants, were only the flames of FEUGREGEOIS, as it was called, that is of WILDFIRE, which appeared so strange, on its first invention and application, in the barbarous ages.

We hear much of its wonders in the history of the Crusades; and even so late as Spenser’s own time they were not forgotten. Davila, speaking of the siege of Poitiers in 1569, tells us——Abbondavano nella citta le provisioni da guerra; tra le quali, quantita inestimabile di FUOCHI ARTIFICIATI, lavorati in diverse maniere, ne’quali avenano i defensori posta grandissima speranza di respingere gli assalti de’nemici. Lib. v.

Hence, without doubt, the magical flames and fiery walls, of the Gothic Romancers53; and who will say, that the specious miracles of Homer himself had a better foundation?

But, after all, this is not the sort of defence I mean chiefly to insist upon. Let others explain away these wonders, so offensive to certain philosophical critics. They are welcome to me in their own proper form, and with all the extravagance commonly imputed to them.

It is true, the only criticism, worth regarding, is that which these critics lay claim to, the philosophical. But there is a sort which looks like philosophy, and is not. May not that be the case here?

This criticism, whatever name it deserves, supposes that the poets, who are lyars by profession, expect to have their lyes believed. Surely they are not so unreasonable. They think it enough, if they can but bring you to imagine the possibility of them.

And how small a matter will serve for this? A legend, a tale, a tradition, a rumour, a superstition; in short, any thing is enough to be the basis of their air-formed visions. Does any capable reader trouble himself about the truth, or even the credibility of their fancies? Alas, no; he is best pleased when he is made to conceive (he minds not by what magic) the existence of such things as his reason tells him did not, and were never likely to, exist.

But here, to prevent mistakes, an explanation will be necessary. We must distinguish between the popular belief, and that of the reader. The fictions of poetry do, in some degree at least, require the first (they would, otherwise, deservedly pass for dreams indeed): but when the poet has this advantage on his side, and his fancies have, or may be supposed to have, a countenance from the current superstitions of the age in which he writes, he dispenses with the last, and gives his reader leave to be as sceptical, and as incredulous, as he pleases.

A fashionable French critic diverts himself with imagining “what a person, who comes fresh from reading Mr. Addison and Mr. Locke, would be apt to think of Tasso’s Enchantments54.”

The English reader will, perhaps, smile at seeing these two writers so coupled together: and, with the critic’s leave, we will put Mr. Locke out of the question. But if he be desirous to know what a reader of Mr. Addison would pronounce in the case, I can undertake to give him satisfaction.

Speaking of what Mr. Dryden calls, the Fairy way of writing, “Men of cold fancies and philosophical dispositions, says he, object to this kind of poetry, that it has not probability enough to affect the imagination. But—many are prepossest with such false opinions, as dispose them to believe these particular delusions: at least, we have all heard so many pleasing relations in favour of them, that we do not care for seeing through the falsehood, and willingly give ourselves up to so agreeable an imposture.” [Spect. N^o 419.]

Apply, now, this sage judgment of Mr. Addison to Tasso’s Enchantments; and you see that a falsehood convict is not to be pleaded against a supposed belief, or even the slightest hear-say.

So little account does this wicked poetry make of philosophical or historical truth: all she allows us to look for, is poetical truth; a very slender thing indeed, and which the poet’s eye, when rolling in a fine frenzy, can but just lay hold of. To speak in the philosophic language of Mr. Hobbes, it is something much beyond the actual bounds, and only within the conceived possibility of nature.

But the source of bad criticism, as universally of bad philosophy, is the abuse of terms. A poet, they say, must follow nature; and by nature we are to suppose can only be meant the known and experienced course of affairs in this world. Whereas the poet has a world of his own, where experience has less to do, than consistent imagination.

He has, besides, a supernatural world to range in. He has Gods, and Fairies, and Witches, at his command: and,

Thus, in the poet’s world, all is marvellous and extraordinary; yet not unnatural in one sense, as it agrees to the conceptions that are readily entertained of these magical and wonder-working natures.

This trite maxim of following Nature is further mistaken, in applying it indiscriminately to all sorts of poetry.

In those species which have men and manners professedly for their theme, a strict conformity with human nature is reasonably demanded.

is a proper motto to a book of epigrams; but would make a poor figure at the head of an epic poem.

Still further in those species that address themselves to the heart, and would obtain their end, not through the imagination, but through the passions, there the liberty of transgressing nature, I mean the real powers and properties of human nature, is infinitely restrained; and poetical truth is, under these circumstances, almost as severe a thing as historical.

The reason is, we must first believe before we can be affected.

But the case is different with the more sublime and creative poetry. This species, addressing itself solely or principally to the Imagination; a young and credulous faculty, which loves to admire and to be deceived; has no need to observe those cautious rules of credibility, so necessary to be followed by him who would touch the affections and interest the heart.

This difference, you will say, is obvious enough: How came it then to be overlooked? From another mistake, in extending a particular precept of the drama into a general maxim.

The incredulus odi of Horace ran in the heads of these critics, though his own words confine the observation singly to the stage:

That, which passes in representation, and challenges, as it were, the scrutiny of the eye, must be truth itself, or something very nearly approaching to it. But what passes in narration, even on the stage, is admitted without much difficulty—

In the epic narration, which may be called absens facundia, the reason of the thing shews this indulgence to be still greater. It appeals neither to the eye nor the ear, but simply to the imagination, and so allows the poet a liberty of multiplying and enlarging his impostures at pleasure, in proportion to the easiness and comprehension of that faculty55.

These general reflexions hardly require an application to the present subject. The tales of Fairy are exploded, as fantastic and incredible. They would merit this contempt, if presented on the stage; I mean, if they were given as the proper subject of dramatic imitation, and the interest of the poet’s plot were to be wrought out of the adventures of these marvellous persons. But the epic muse runs no risque in giving way to such fanciful exhibitions.

You may call them, as one does, “extraordinary dreams, such as excellent poets and painters, by being over-studious, may have in the beginning of fevers56.”

The epic poet would acknowledge the charge, and even value himself upon it. He would say, “I leave to the sage dramatist the merit of being always broad awake, and always in his senses. The divine dream57, and delirious fancy, are among the noblest of my prerogatives.”

But the injustice done the Italian poets does not stop here. The cry is, “Magic and enchantments are senseless things. Therefore the Italian poets are not worth the reading.” As if, because the superstitions of Homer and Virgil are no longer believed, their poems, which abound in them, are good for nothing.