Things to keep in mind:
The secret of the shelf.
This poet contains great beauties, a sweet and harmonious versification, easy elocution, a fine imagination: yet does the perusal of his work become so tedious, that one never finishes it from the mere pleasure which it affords: It soon becomes a kind of task reading; and it requires some effort and resolution to carry us to the end of his long performance. This effect, of which every one is conscious, is usually ascribed to the change of manners. But manners have more changed since Homer's age, and yet that poet remains still the favourite of every reader of taste and judgment. Homer copied true natural manners, which, however rough or uncultivated, will always form an agreeable and interesting picture. But the pencil of the English poet was employed in drawing the affectations and conceits and fopperies of chivalry, which appear ridiculous as soon as they lose the recommendation of the mode. The tediousness of continued allegory, and that too seldom striking and ingenuous, has also contributed to render the F--ry Queen peculiarly tiresome; not to mention the too great frequency of its descriptions, and the langour of its stanza. Upon the whole, Spenser maintains his place upon the shelves among our English classics: but he is seldom seen on the table; and there is scarcely any one, if he dares to be ingenuous, but will confess that, notwithstanding all the merit of the poet, he affords an entertainment with which the palate is soon satiated.
—posted 794 days ago
