author might have in his eye thofe celebrated lines "Ille hic eft Raphael, timuit quo fofpite vinci I find no account of the family which Spenfer left behind him, only that, in the few particulars of his life prefixed to the last folio edition of his works, it is faid that his great grandfon Hugolin Spenser, after the return of King Charles the fecond, was restored by the Court of Claims to fo much of the lands as could be found to have been his ancestors: whether this were true or not, I cannot determine; but I think I ought not to omit mentioning another very remarkable paffage, of which I can give the reader much better affurance; That a perfon came over from Ireland, in King William's reign, fo follicit the fame affair, and brought with him letters of recommendation as a defcendent of Spenfer. His name procured him a favourable reception; and he applied himself particularly to Mr. Congreve, by whom he was generously recommended to the favour of the late Earl of Hallifax, who was then at the head of the treafury; and by that means he obtained his fuit. This man was somewhat advanced in years, and might be the fame mentioned before, who had poffibly recovered only fome part of the estate at firft, or had been difturbed in the poffeffion of it. He could give no account of the works of his anceftor, which are wanting, and which are therefore in all probability irrecoverably loft. REMARKS REMARKS FAIRY ON THE QUEEN. By Mr. HUGHES. TH HE chief merit of this poem confifts in that furprizing vein of fabulous invention, which runs through it, and enriches it every where with imagery and descriptions more than we meet with in any other modern poem. The author feems to be poffeffed of a kind of poetical magick; and the figures he calls up to our view rife fo thick upon us, that we are at once pleafed and diftracted by the exhauftlefs variety of them; fo that his faults may in a manner be imputed to his excellencies: His abundance betrays him into excefs, and his judgment is overborne by the torrent of his imagination. That which feems the moft liable to exception in this work, is the model of it, and the choice the author has made of fo romantick a story. The feveral books appear rather like fo many feveral poems, than one entire fable: Each of them has its peculiar Knight, and is independent of the reft; and tho' fome of the perfons make their appearance in different books, yet this has very little effect in connecting them. Prince Arthur is indeed the principal perfon, and has therefore a share given him in every legend; but his part is not confiderable enough in any one of them: He appears and vanishes again like a fpirit; and we lofe fight of him too soon, to confider him as the hero of the poem. Thefe These are the most obvious defects in the fable of the Fairy Queen, The want of unity in the story makes it difficult for the reader to carry it in his mind, and diftracts too much his attention to the feveral parts of it; and indeed the whole frame of it would appear monftrous, if it were to be examined by the rules of epick poetry, as they have been drawn from the practice of Homer and Virgil. But as it is plain the author never defigned it by thofe rules, I think it ought rather to be confidered as a poem of a particular kind, defcribing in a feries of allegorical adventures or epifodes the most noted virtues and vices: to compare it therefore with the models of antiquity, would be like drawing a parallel between the Roman and the Gothick architecture. In the first there is doubtless a more natural grandeur and fimplicity in the latter, we find great mixtures of beauty and barbarifm, yet affifted by the invention of a variety of inferior ornaments; and tho' the former is more majestick in the whole, the latter may be very furprizing and agreeable in its parts. It may feem ftrange indeed, fince Spenfer appears to have been well acquainted with the belt writers of antiquity, that he has not imitated them in the ftructure of his ftory. Two reasons may be given for this: The firft is, that at the time when he wrote, the Italian poets, whom he has chiefly imitated, and who were the first revivers of this art among the moderns, were in the higheft vogue, and were univerfally read and admired. But the chief reason was probably, that he chose to frame his fable after a model which might give the greatest scope to that range of fancy which was fo remarkably his talent. There is a bent in nature, which is apt to determine men that particular way in which they are moft capable of excelling; and tho' it is certain he might have formed a better plan, it is to be queftioned whether he could have executed any other fo well. It is probably for the fame reason, that among the Italian poets, he rather followed Ariofto, whom he found more agreeable to his genius, than Tafo, who had formed a better |