[1] We have a collection of these "Allegoricae Homericae." Even the
great Verulam caught the infectious ingenuity; and, in "the wisdom of
the ancients," explains everything with the skill of a great Homeric
scholiast.
[2] Berni's "Bojardo," canto xxxi. st. 2. He has hardly improved the
verse in the "Inferno," canto ix. ver. 61.--
O voi ch'avete gl'intelletti sani,
Mirate la dottrina che s'asconde,
_Sotto il velame degli versi strani_.
[3] The "Allegoria dalla Poema" is appended to the ancient editions
of Tasso's "Gerusalemme Liberata." The one before me is dated
Ferrara, 1582. I believe it has been indignantly rejected by modern
editors. When we detect Tasso seriously describing Godfrey as the
type of the human understanding--Rinaldo, and Tancred, and others, as
different faculties of the soul--and the common soldiers as the body
of man--we regret that an honourable mind should degrade itself by
such literary imposture. At length, having succeeded in imposing on
others, he attempted to impose on himself; for he actually commenced
a second "Jerusalem" on the allegorical system, and did not more
happily succeed in his elder days than our Akenside in his
philosophical destruction of his youthful poem.
[4] "Edinburgh Review," vol. vii. p. 215.
[5] Book III. canto viii.
[6] It has been observed of Upton that, though an excellent classical
scholar, he was little versed in the romances of chivalry. In the
romance of "Gyron le Courtois" he would have found the original of
the farcical Knight Braggadochio; a fact, long after I had written
the above, which I owe to Mr. Southey. Such ludicrous caricatures are
unusual with the delicacy and elegance of Spenser; and they seem
never to have been struck in his mint. I suspect we should not have
had such farcical personages in the "Faery Queen," had not Spenser's
propensity to imitation induced him to follow his beloved patron, who
has not happily introduced in the "Arcadia" the low comic of Damoetas
and his ugly daughter Mopsa.
[7] Upton's note at the close of the fifth book of "The Faery Queen."