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to his personages, for characters they can hardly be called.
Above all, he has gone to the provincial dialects for words wherewith to enlarge and freshen his poetical vocabulary.1 I look upon the ‘Shepherd's Calendar’ as being no less a conscious and deliberate attempt at reform than Thomson's ‘Seasons’ were in the topics, and Wordsworth's ‘Lyrical Ballads’ in the language of poetry.
But the great merit of these pastorals was not so much in their matter as their manner.
They show a sense of style in its larger meaning hitherto displayed by no English poet since Chaucer.
Surrey had brought back from Italy a certain inkling of it, so far as it is contained in decorum.
But here was a new language, a choice and arrangement of words, a variety, elasticity, and harmony of verse most grateful to the ears of men. If not passion, there was fervor, which was perhaps as near it as the somewhat stately movement of Spenser's mind would allow him to come.
Sidney had tried many experiments in versification, which are curious and interesting, especially his attempts to naturalize the sliding rhymes of Sannazzaro in English.
But there is everywhere the uncertainty of a 'prentice hand.
Spenser shows himself already a master, at least in verse, and we can trace the studies of Milton, a yet greater master,
1 Sir Philip Sidney did not approve of this. ‘That same framing of his style to an old rustic language I dare not allow, since neither Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, nor Sannazzaro in Italian did affect it.’ （‘Defence of Poesy.’) Ben Jonson, on the other hand, said that Guarini ‘kept not decorum in making shepherds speak as well as himself could.’ （‘Conversations with Drummond.’) I think Sidney was right, for the poets' Arcadia is a purely ideal world, and should be treated accordingly. But whoever looks into the glossary appended to the ‘Calendar’ by E. K., will be satisfied that Spenser's object was to find unhackneyed and poetical words rather than such as should seem more on a level with the speakers. See also the ‘Epistle Dedicatory.’ I cannot help thinking that E. K. was Spenser himself, with occasional interjections of Harvey. Who else could have written such English as many passages in this Epistle?
Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston, 1876.
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