ALLEGORY.

Allegory and its exposition of what is termed the double or secret

sense, is a topic on more than one account important. The mystical art

of types and symbols has given rise to some extraordinary abuses, and

even to artifices, which may be considered as an imposture practised on

the human understanding. An extended fictitious narrative, constructed

on the principle of one continued allegory, is a topic which critical

learning has not expressly treated on. An allegorical epic never

occurred to the ancient legislator of poetry; and modern critics have

consented to define ALLEGORY as "that art in which one thing is

_related_, and another _understood_."

But it has been subsequently discovered that this definition was too

narrow to comprehend the multiform shapes which allegory assumes, either

in the subtility or the grossness of its nature.

Licentious commentators have rioted in their presumed discoveries by

extorting from the apparent meaning a hidden sense; or by typical

adumbrations wresting allusions to persons or circumstances. The genius

of allegory has triumphed from an extended metaphor to a whole poem

itself; and its chimerical results have often resembled the

metamorphoses of Ovid, turning every object into an altered shape, and

making two objects, wholly unconnected, appear to rise out of each

other. We may show from the success of many of these pretended

revelations that the difficulty has not always been so great as the

absurdity.

A prevalent folly has usually some parent-origin; and the present one of

ALLEGORY may have been an ancient one. The learned have sought for the

source of Allegory in the night of Egyptian darkness, among their

hieroglyphics. That curious tale of antiquity which Herodotus has

preserved shows us all the obscurity and the inconvenience of

allegorical communication in its ambidextrous nature. The four

symbols--of the arrows, the bird, the mouse, and the frog, which the

Scythian ambassadors silently presented to Darius on his invasion of

their deserts, were an allegory; and like many allegories, this

emblematical embassy admitted of contrary interpretations. This

enigmatic humour of the Egyptian learning seems to have been caught by

the emblematical Greeks. The priesthood, eager to save the divinity of

their whole theogony from the popular traditions and poetical impieties

of that bible of the Polytheists, the Iliad, opened the secret or double

sense of Homer. They maintained that the Homeric fables were nothing

less than an allegory, shadowing forth the mysteries of nature, and

veiling an arcanum of the sciences physical and moral. And these

elucidators of speculative obscurities formed a sect under the lower

Platonists.[1] The fathers were perfect children in their ridiculous

allegories, and they allegorised the Old Testament throughout; and

assuredly the Rabbins did not yield in puerility to the fathers. But all

these were on topics too solemn to enter into our present inquiry.

We may, however, smile when we discover this race of Oedipuses among the

_romanzatori_, or the publishers of the ancient romances. With solemn

effrontery these proceeded on the principle of allegory to dignify their

light and lying volumes, either to renovate the satiated curiosity of

their readers, to cover the freedom of their prurient incidents, or to

tolerate their marvellous fantasies. The editor of "Amadis of Gaul"

revealed a secret yet untold. The common reader hitherto had never

strayed beyond the literal sense; but he was now informed that he had

only culled the most perishable flowers; for the more elevated mind were

reserved the perennial fruits of a mystical interpretation of the occult

sense. It was in this way that the famous "Romaunt of the Rose," from a

mere love-story and a general satire on society, was converted into a

volume of theology, of politics, of ethics, and even of the _grand

oeuvre_ of the alchemists. Such inchoate mysteries were told under "the

rose!" The most ludicrous display of their literary imposture may be

seen in that collection of popular tales called the _Gesta Romanorum_.

Every tale is accompanied by the gloss of a pious allegorist. An

"Emperor," or "Pompey the Great," is a frequent personage in these

tales, and is always the type of "our Heavenly Father," or "the soul,"

or "the Saviour;" while _Contes a la Fontaine_, however licentious, pass

through a moralization by the puritanical cant of hypocritical monkery.

Conforming to the spurious piety of this monkish taste, a voluminous

commentary expounded the morality of the ravishing versatilities of

Ariosto. Berni gravely assured us that all the marvels of enchanted

gardens, voluminous dragons, sylvan savages, and monsters with human

faces, were only thrown out for the amusement of the ignorant; and

concludes with these memorable lines, which he freely borrowed from the

father of Italian poesy--

Ma voi ch'avete gl'intelletti sani,

Mirate la dottrina che s'asconde,

Sotto queste coperte alte e profonde![2]

"But ye of sounder intellect admire the wisdom hidden under these

coverings, high and profound!" A strain so solemn and melodious was not

the least exquisite pleasantry from a burlesque satirist!

Camoens having adopted the Grecian mythology in his Christian epic,

recourse was had to a mystic allegory to defend the incongruity; when

Vasco de Gama and his companions sport with Thetis and her nymphs,

allegorically, though in good earnest, some Portuguese commentator has

explained how "these phantastic amours signify the _wild sects_ of

different enthusiasts in the most rational institutions, which, however

contrary to each other, all agree in deriving their authority from the

same source." To such ineptitudes are the allegorists sometimes driven,

from the sickly taste of gratifying the infirmity of readers by cloaking

their freest inventions in the garb of piety and morality. Thus the

popular literature of Europe was overrun by these adumbrations. Even

Milton echoed the occult doctrine which he had caught from the seers of

the old _Romanzatori_--those Gothic Homers in whose spells he had been

bound:--

Forests and enchantments drear,

_Where more is meant than meets the ear_.

While this mania of allegorising fictitious narratives was in vogue, a

remarkable occurrence, had it been publicly known, might have let the

initiated into a secret more "high and profound" than any of their

esoteric revelations, and might have exposed the imposture which had

been so long practised on their simplicity. The hapless Tasso was

harassed by a most "stiff-necked" generation of "the learned Romans," as

he calls the Classicists--a mob of _signori_, of mechanical critics,

protesting against his potent inventions.

Magnanima Mensogna, hor quando e il vero

Si bello che si posse a te preporre.

The forest incantations of Ismen, and the enchantments of Armida, those

true creations of Gothic romance, were on the point of utter perdition.

In this extremity the poet decided to have recourse to the prevalent

folly of fitting an allegory to his epic. He acknowledges to his

confidential friend that the whole was only designed to humour the

times, and begs that he may not be laughed at. "I will act the profound,

and show that I have a deep political purpose;" and he might have added

a whole system of ethics which has been extorted from the presumed

allegory. "Under this shield," he proceeds, "I shall endeavour to

protect the _loves_ and the _enchantments_"--those golden leaves which

the furious classicists would have torn out of his romantic epic. By

this singular fact we are led to this important discovery, that to

allegorise is no difficult affair, for the present allegory was "the

work of a single morning!"[3]

Tasso's confession is a perpetual demonstration of _the fallacies of

allegory_. We must wholly rid ourselves of "gl' intelletti sani," if we

doubt that the original writers who have been so largely allegorised

ever composed an extended fictitious narrative but in all the freedom of

invention, in open daylight, and never seeking to hide nature in secret

coverts.

If, as we see, an allegory may be ingeniously drawn from a work which

never was allegorical; so when an allegory seems designed, its secret

application is usually the forlorn hope of literature, since the most

subtile conjectures on these enigmas have wholly differed from each

other.

Persons and incidents in an allegorical fiction are noses of wax, ever

to be shaped by a more adroit finger. But in a lengthened allegory, the

ground is often shifted; the allegorister tires of his allegory, and at

length means what he says and nothing more. This has driven the

expounders of the double sense into the absurdity of explaining an

identical object, sometimes in a metaphysical, and at others in a

material sense; they take up what their fancy requires, and cautiously

drop what would place them in an inextricable position.

DANTE opened his great work in the darkness of an allegory; but how the

erratic commentators have lost their way in "Le tenebre della Divina

Commedia!" What are the three allegorical animals which open "the

Vision?" The double sense remains inexplicable from its abundant

explanations. Are these animals personifications of three great

passions? Is the gay panther the type of luxurious pleasure, the lion of

ambition, the she-wolf of avarice? But what if the spotted panther

should be the representative of Dante's own Florence, and its spots

indicate the Neri and the Bianchi factions? The hungry lion, with its

lofty head, would then be superb France, and the lean she-wolf, never

satiate, be devouring Rome. Yet a later revelation from Niebuhr,

according to his Platonic ideas, sees but three metaphysical beings the

types of the soul, the understanding, and the senses. Should some future

allegorister discover, by his historical, political, and ethical

fancies, that the three animals were designed, one for a wavering and

maculated Ghibelline, and the others for the resolute papal Guelphs, the

probability would be much the same. In truth we can afford but small

confidence to these expounders of the double sense; for when Jean

Molinet allegorised the "Roman de la Rose," and illustrated it by

historical appliances, as chronology was rarely consulted in his day, it

appears that this good canon of Valenciennes had allegorised in

reference to persons who flourished and events which occurred posterior

to the time of the writers.

In the instances which we have indicated, such as in Ariosto and Tasso,

it was the commentator who had indulged his allegorical genius, not the

original writers themselves. With one of our great poets unhappily the

case is reversed; the poetic character and destiny of Spenser stand

connected with allegory; for here the poet himself prematurely

_meditated on his allegory before he invented his fiction_. The

difference is immense. SPENSER fell a victim to this phantom of the

poetic creed of his day. Deeming a mystic allegory a novel spirit in

poesy, he who was to run the glorious career of Faery-land first forged

the brazen bonds which he could never shake off. His invention was made

subordinate to a prescribed system. The poet was continually running

after the allegory, which he did not always care to recover in the

exuberance of his imagination, and the copious facility of his stanzas.

Often must he have deprived his twelve knights-errant of their tangible

humanity, perpetually relapsing into their metaphysical nonentities--Sir

Guyon into temperance, Arthegal into justice, and Sir Caladore into

courtesy!

Yet this is not the sole defect of the allegorical character of the

"Faery Queen." We may suspect that when SPENSER decided on constructing

an allegorical poem, he had not any settled notions of the artifice of

types, nor yet of the subjects to be symbolised; of fictions which were

to conceal truths, and of truths which might be mistaken for fictions. A

strange confusion often prevails in his system, sometimes ambiguous,

sometimes contradictory, whenever the allegory loses itself in what is

not allegorical, or the reality is as suddenly lost amid the mystical

fancies.

The poet himself announced that the "Faery Queen" was "a continued

allegory or dark conceit;" and he was so strongly convinced that "all

allegories are doubtfully construed," that he determined to expound his

own text regarding a most eminent personage; but this was merely to

secure a courtly eulogy on a royal patroness. "In the 'Faerie Queene' I

mean _glory_ in my _general_ intention, but in my _particular_ I

conceive the most excellent and glorious person of the Queen and her

kingdom in Faery-land." He afterwards adds that "in some places also I

do otherwise shadow her." And further, the poet informs us that "her

Majesty is two persons, a royal Queen and a most virtuous and beautiful

lady." Truly her Majesty might have viewed herself "in mirrors more than

one," and, as she much liked, in different dresses. Now as the Faerie

Queen, now as Belphoebe, now as Cynthia, now as Mercilla; and in the

"Legend of Chastity," who would deny that Britomart is the shadow of the

Virgin Queen, notwithstanding that this lady-warrior bears a closer

resemblance to Virgil's Camilla, to Ariosto's Bradamante, and Tasso's

Clorinda? All this the poet has revealed; but had he been silent, these

mystical types might have baffled even the perilous ingenuity of Upton,

his egregious expounder of the double sense, the exuberance of whose

conjectural sagacity might have enlightened and charmed even Spenser

himself!

The poet was himself aware that when an allegory does not gracefully

unveil itself, it admits of the most dubious expositions. The allegories

of the "Faery Queen" which allude to public events are transparent. The

first book exhibits the struggles of the Reformation with papistry. Una

is Truth, the Red-cross Knight the Christian militant, still subjected

to trial and infirmity, separated from Una, or as it was called, "the

true Religion," by the magical illusions of Archimagus, whom Warton

considers was the arch-fiend himself, but Upton only an adumbration of

"his Holiness." The terrible giant, Orgoglio, seems to have a stronger

claim to be the proud and potent Bishop of Rome, enamoured as he is of

Superstition in the false Duessa, that gorgeous enchantress, so fair and

foul, arrayed in purple and scarlet, whom he has seated on his

seven-headed dragon, and on whose head he has placed a triple crown. The

dark den of monstrous Error, the hastening cavalcade of every splendid

vice, the combat with the Infidel Sans Foy, the church militant finally

triumphant in the solemn union of the Red-cross with Una, complete the

allegory of "Holiness." The Apocalypse may serve as the commentary on

some of these personages; but the well-known title of the lady may not

be risked to "ears polite." But such is the moveable machinery of

allegorical history, that Sir Walter Scott, in his review of Todd's

Spenser, has discovered many other shadowings of _facts_, in the history

of Christian "Holiness," who, like the Red-cross Knight, separated from

Una, had to encounter "the monster Error, and her brood," in paganism,

before the downfall of Orgoglio and Duessa, and popery in England; in

the freedom of the Red-cross Knight from his imprisonment, our critic

reveals the establishment of the Protestant Church.[4] Sir Walter might

have noticed Spenser's abhorrence of the puritans.

The allegory is still more obvious when the poet alludes to some

contemporary events. It is then a masquerade by daylight, where the

maskers pass on, holding their masks in their hands. In the fifth book

we see the distressed Knight Bourbon, opposed by a rabble-rout in his

attempt to possess himself of the Lady _Fleur de Lis_, whom he loves for

"her lordships and her lands." He bears away that half-reluctant and coy

lady. But for this purpose Bourbon had basely changed his shield, and,

reproached by Sir Arthegal or Justice, he offers but a recreant's

apology:--

----When time shall serve,

My former shield I may resume again;

To temporise is not from truth to swerve.

Fie on such forgerie! said Arthegal,

Under one hood to shadow faces twain.

The change of shields of Sir Bourbon is the change of faith of Henry of

Navarre; and the reluctant mistress is that uncompliant France whom he

forced to take him as her monarch. Not less obvious is the episode of

the Lady Belge calling for aid on the British prince--she, now widowed,

and whose seventeen sons were reduced to five by the cruelties of

Geryon, and the horrors of that implacable "monster, who lay hid in

darkness, under the cursed Idol's altar-stone;" the great revolution of

the Netherlands, the reduction of the seventeen provinces, and the

horrors of a Romish persecution, are apparent.

But when the allegory runs into obscurer incidents and more fictitious

personages than those which we have noticed, it becomes rarefied into

volatile conjecture, or by our ingenuity may be shaped into partial

resemblances, always uncertain, when we accept invented fictions as

historical evidence. We know that a writer of an elaborate fictitious

narrative may have touched on circumstances and characters caught from

life; but all these, in passing through the mind of the inventor, are

usually so altered from their reality, to be accommodated to the higher

design of the invention, that any parallel in private history, or any

likeness of an individual character, any indistinct allusion, can never

deserve our historical confidence. A picture of human nature would be an

anomalous work, in which we could trace no resemblance to individuals,

or discover no coincidences of circumstances.

A century and a half after the publication of the "Faery Queen," a

commentator of "the double sense" revealed to its readers that sealed

history which they had never read, and which the poet had never

divulged. A few traditional rumours may have floated down; but it was

UPTON'S edition which startled the world by the abundance of its modern

revelations.

JOHN UPTON, prebendary of Rochester, and the master of a public school,

which he raised to eminence, was distinguished for his scholastic

acquirements, the depth of his critical erudition, and for his

acquaintance with the history of the Elizabethan court, chiefly,

however, drawn from Camden. Acute in his emendations of texts, they were

not, however, slightly tinged by an over-refining pedantry at the cost

of his taste; and as his judgment was the infirmest of his faculties, in

his enthusiasm for an historical illustration of Spenser, he seems often

encumbered by his knowledge striking out similitudes and parallels; a

few appear not infelicitous, but many are suggested in the

licentiousness of vague conjecture, or left half in the light and half

in the dark. His "Critical Observations on Shakspeare" remind one of

Bentley's "slashing" of Milton. Dr. Johnson has been censured for the

severity of his character of UPTON; I know not whether the doctor ever

attended to Upton's Commentary on Spenser; he has, however, admirably

hit off a prominent feature of our critic. "Every cold"--in Upton's case

I would rather say warm--"empiric, when his heart is expanded by a

successful experiment, swells into a theorist."

"In one sense," says UPTON, "you are in Fairy-Land, yet in another you

may be in the British dominions." And further, "where the _moral_

allusion is not apparent, you must look for an _historical_ allusion."

Such are the fundamental positions of the allegorical theory, by which a

conjectural historian designs to unveil the secret sense of a romantic

epic; the poet, according to him, having frigidly descended into the

historiographer of the court of Elizabeth, rather than of the court of

the Faery Queen--to catch "the Cynthias of the minute," and to waste his

colours on their evanescent portraits.

And amusing it is to watch the historical conjecturer of a romantic poem

perilously creeping along the dark passages of secret history; but he is

often at a stand. In "the palpable obscure," the historical reality,

which he seems to be touching, suddenly disappears under his grasp. We

have no golden key to open the occult chamber, where we are told so many

knights and ladies lie entranced near two centuries in their magical

sleep, and where, amid the shadowiness, the historical necromancer

promptly furnishes us with their very names, recognising all these

enchanted persons by their very attitudes.

One of his most felicitous conjectures regards "the gentle squire

Timias" as the poet's honoured friend, Sir Walter Rawleigh. Sir Walter

once incurred the disgrace of the Queen by a criminal amour with one of

the maids of honour; he was for some time banished the court; but the

injury to the lady was expiated by marriage. The private history we are

to look for in the Allegory. Timias offends Belphoebe the patroness of

Chastity, and the Queen of England, who surprised "the gentle squire"

in a very suspicious attitude of tenderness with Amoret. This lady was

suffering from violence, having been "rapt by greedie Lust," and the

gentle squire himself had partaken of the mischance, in encountering

that savage. Timias; the knight, is seen--

From her fair eyes wiping the dewy wet,

Which softly slid; and kissing them atween,

And handling soft the hurts which she did get.