The wonders of Chivalry were still in the memory of men, were still
existing, in some measure, in real life, when CHAUCER undertook to
expose the barbarous relaters of them.
This ridicule, we may suppose, hastened the fall both of Chivalry and
Romance. At least from that time the spirit of both declined very fast,
and at length fell into such discredit, that when now SPENSER arose,
and with a genius singularly fitted to immortalize the land of Fairy,
he met with every difficulty and disadvantage to obstruct his design.
The age would no longer bear the naked letter of these amusing stories;
and the poet was so sensible of the misfortune, that we find him
apologizing for it on a hundred occasions.
But apologies, in such circumstances, rarely do any good. Perhaps, they
only served to betray the weakness of the poet’s cause, and to confirm
the prejudices of his reader.
However, he did more than this. He gave an air of mystery to his
subject, and pretended that his stories of knights and giants were but
the cover to abundance of profound wisdom.
In short, to keep off the eyes of the prophane from prying too
nearly into his subject, he threw about it the mist of allegory:
he moralized his song: and the virtues and vices lay hid under his
warriors and enchanters. A contrivance which he had learned indeed
from his _Italian_ masters: for TASSO had condescended to allegorise
his own work; and the commentators of ARIOSTO had even converted the
extravagances of the _Orlando Furioso_, into moral lessons.
And this, it must be owned, was a sober attempt in comparison of some
projects that were made about the same time to serve the cause of
the old, and now-expiring Romances. For it is to be observed, that
the idolizers of those Romances did by them, what the votaries of
HOMER had done by him. As the times improved and would less bear his
strange tales, they _moralized_ what they could, and turned the rest
into mysteries of _natural science_. And as this last contrivance was
principally designed to cover the monstrous stories of the _Pagan
Gods_, so it served the lovers of Romance to palliate the no less
monstrous stories of _magic enchantments_.
The editor or translator of the 24th book of AMADIS DE GAULE, printed
at _Lyons_ in 1577, has a preface explaining the whole secret, which
concludes with these words, “Voyla, lecteur, le FRUIT, qui se peut
recueiller du sens mystique des Romans antiques par les ESPRITS ESLEUS,
le commun peuple soy contentant de la SIMPLE FLEUR DE LA LECTURE
LITERALE.”
But to return to SPENSER; who, as we have seen, had no better way to
take in his distress, than to hide his fairy fancies under the mystic
cover of moral allegory. The only favourable circumstance that attended
him (and this no doubt encouraged, if it did not produce, his untimely
project) was, that he was somewhat befriended in these fictions, even
when interpreted according to the Letter, by the Romantic Spirit of his
age; much countenanced, and for a time brought into fresh credit, by
the Romantic ELIZABETH. Her inclination for the fancies of Chivalry is
well known; and obsequious wits and courtiers would not be wanting, to
feed and flatter it. In short, tilts and tournaments were in vogue:
the _Arcadia_ and the _Fairy Queen_ were written.
With these helps the new spirit of Chivalry made a shift to support
itself for a time, when reason was but dawning, as we may say, and
just about to gain the ascendant over the portentous spectres of the
imagination. Its growing splendour, in the end, put them all to flight,
and allowed them no quarter even among the poets. So that MILTON, as
fond as we have seen he was of the _Gothic_ fictions, durst only admit
them on the bye, and in the way of simile and illustration only.
And this, no doubt, was the main reason of his relinquishing his
long-projected design of Prince ARTHUR, at last, for that of the
_Paradise Lost_; where, instead of Giants and Magicians, he had
Angels and Devils to supply him with the _marvellous_, with greater
probability. Yet, though he dropped the tales, he still kept to the
allegories of SPENSER. And even this liberty was thought too much, as
appears from the censure passed on his _Sin and Death_ by the severer
critics.
Thus at length the magic of the old Romances was perfectly dissolved.
They began with reflecting an image indeed of the feudal manners,
but an image magnified and distorted by unskilful designers. Common
sense being offended with these perversions of truth and nature (still
accounted the more monstrous, as the antient manners, they pretended to
copy after, were now disused, and of most men forgotten), the next step
was to have recourse to _allegories_. Under this disguise they _walked
the world_ a while; the excellence of the moral and the ingenuity of
the contrivance making some amends, and being accepted as a sort of
apology, for the absurdity of the literal story.
Under this form the tales of Fairy kept their ground, and even made
their fortune at court; where they became, for two or three reigns, the
ordinary entertainment of our princes. But reason, in the end (assisted
however by party, and religious prejudices), drove them off the scene,
and would endure these _lying wonders_, neither in their own proper
shape, nor as masked in figures.
Henceforth, the taste of wit and poetry took a new turn: and the
_Muse_, who had wantoned it so long in the world of fiction, was now
constrained, against her will,
“To stoop with disenchanted wings to truth,”
as Sir JOHN DENHAM somewhere expresses her present enforced state, not
unhappily.
What we have gotten by this revolution, you will say, is a great deal
of good sense. What we have lost, is a world of fine fabling; the
illusion of which is so grateful to the _charmed Spirit_, that, in
spite of philosophy and fashion, _Fairy_ SPENSER still ranks highest
among the poets; I mean, with all those who are either come of that
house, or have any kindness for it.
Earth-born critics, my friend, may blaspheme:
“But all the GODS are ravish’d with delight
Of his celestial song, and music’s wondrous might.”