Engraving from Dodsley's "Collection of Poems in Six Volumes by Several
Hands", vol.3, p. 302. (1758). It is placed opposite the title-page of "Musaeus, A
Monody to the Memory of Mr. Pope. In Imitation of Milton's Lycidas. By the
same". (i. e. William Mason).

It illustrates the attitude of the eighteenth century towards Pope, Spenser
and Milton better than anything else could do.

22

JOHN HUGHES (1677-1720)

what was noble and virtuous 1). It seems very probable that there is some connection between Hughes' edition ✓ and Steele's letter about Spenser in "The Spectator", No. 840 (Nov. 19, 1712), where Steele says: "You will lose much of my kind inclination towards you if you do not attempt the encomium of Spenser also, or at least indulge my passion for that charming author so far as to print the loose hints I now give you on the subject.” ✔ Nor is it a mere coincidence, probably, that the first three genuine Spenserian imitations, i. e. imitations written in the nine-line Spenserian stanza, not in some neo-classical "improvement", appeared in 1713 and 1714.

Hughes anticipated Joseph Warton's "Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope" (1756–1782) and Thomas Warton's "Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser" (1753). Joseph Warton awarded Pope a place next after Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton and said that in Pope and his imitators imagination had been subordinate to logical theory. Thomas Warton wrote: "A poetry succeeded in which imagination gave way to correctness, sublimity of description to delicacy of sentiment and majestic imagery to conceit and epigram." John Hughes had long before the Wartons expressed the same views with regard to "The Faerie Queene". In the opening lines of his "Remarks on the Fairy Queen” (1715, 2nd edition 1750) he said:

"The chief merit of this Poem consists in that surprising vein of fabulous invention, which runs through it, and enriches it every where with Imagery and Descriptions more than we meet with in any other modern Poem. The Author seems to be possess'd by a kind of Poetical Magick; and the Figures he calls up to our view rise so thick upon us, that we are at once pleased and distracted by the exhaustless 1) The Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. IX, p. 144.

Variety of them; so that his Faults may in a manner be imputed to his Excellencies: His Abundance betrays him into Excess, and his Judgement is overborne by the Torrent of his Imagination." Imagination was for Hughes as well as for the Wartons the chief excellence of "The Faerie Queene". For, as Hughes observes, Spenser "chose to frame his Fable after a Model which might give the greatest Scope to that Range of Fancy which was so remarkably his Talent." Hughes' attitude towards "The Faerie Queene" is medieval in its frank and uncritical acceptance of the artistic validity of such an intimate fusion between moral purpose and romantic form. Nowadays the allegory is often regarded as tedious. The Elizabethans and Augustans considered its allegorical and epic more than its romantic values. To the former many of the nineteenth century romantics were blind.

Yet Hughes and his contemporary Spenserians were in advance of their times. Croxall's first "Canto" of 1713 was reprinted three times; his second canto of 1714 was never reprinted; and Samuel Johnson tells us that Hughes' edition was but a moderate success. "He did not revive the curiosity of the public very much, for nearly thirty years elapsed before his edition was reprinted" 1).

The re-issue took place in 1750 and the next year Brindley published another edition of Spenser with notes by Dr. Birch. By 1750, then, Spenser's popularity had become somewhat greater. In 1758 there appeared two editions of "The Faerie Queene", the one edited by John Upton and published by Tonson, the other by Ralph Church, published by William Fadon.

During the last quarter of the century Spenser's poetical works were reprinted in two collections of British Poets, viz. in Bell's and Anderson's editions.

1) Johnson's Lives of the Poets, 1783, Vol. II, p. 425.

24 THE POPULARITY OF DRYDEN AND SPENSER COMPARED

Dryden's poetical works were reprinted in 1701, 1718, 1741, 1743, 1761, 1767, 1777 (Bell's edition), 1779 (Johnson's), 1790 (Johnson's), 1793 (Anderson's) and Joseph Warton's (1799). At various times some of the poems were reprinted in collections, "An Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" being the favourite 1). Dryden's poems, therefore, appeared in eleven more or less complete editions, whilst Spenser's poems appeared in five editions. "The Faerie Queene" was published three times and "The Shepheardes Calender" twice in separate editions.

The attitude of the first quarter of the eighteenth century towards Dryden and Spenser is well illustrated by a comparison of Giles Jacob's remarks about the two poets. As early as 1720 Jacob wrote a prototype of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets". In this year Curll published: “An Historical Account of the Lives and Writings of our most considerable English Poets, whether Epick, Lyrick, Elegiack, Epigrammatists, etc.". Jacob gives details of the lives of about 215 poets. He devotes three-and-a-half pages to Dryden and eight-and-a-half pages to Spenser. Dryden, says Jacob, is "an excellent poet". He is "the most elegant Translator of Poetry that any Age has produc'd: His Works sufficiently show what our Language is capable of; and to give Specimens of his Beauties, would be endless, he has so many Excellencies and was such a universal Writer." This is all that is said in praise of Dryden. But Spenser is:

"a Poet of the greatest Reputation".... "His Fairy Queen, for great Invention and Poetick Height, is judg'd little inferiour, if not equal to the chief of the ancient Greeks and Latins. He had a large spirit, a sharp Judgment and a Genius beyond any that

1) See The Cambridge History of Eng. Lit. Vol. VIII, Bibliography to Chap. I, p. 39. This bibliography is incomplete as regards the eighteenth century. The above lists have been checked in the British Museum.

have writ since Virgil: his Flights of Fancy are noble, and his Execution excellent; but sometimes his Judgment is overborne by the torrent of his Imagination."

The attitude of the age towards "The Faerie Queene" is well summed up by Jacob:

"And as for his Fairy Queen, tho' it was never taken to be a perfect poem, yet it was from the beginning allow'd to be admirable."

But the usual criticism is not lacking:

"He seem'd to want a true Idea and Uniformity; though whatever fault this may be, he endows all his Heroes with some moral Virtue (though in a romantick story) and makes Instruction the subject of his Epick Poem, which is very much to his praise." The opinions about Spenser held by critics of the first half of the eighteenth century were also summarised in Theophilus Cibber's "An Account of the Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland" (1753), a book which contains little original matter, but sums up what earlier compilers, Langbaine, Jacob and others had written. It gave what the public desired. Cibber (or probably one of the "other hands" mentioned on the title-page) says:

"To produce authorities in favour of Spenser, as a poet, I should reckon an affront to his memory; that is a tribute which I shall only pay to inferior wits, whose highest honour it is to be mentioned with respect, by geniuses of a superior class. The works of Spenser will never perish, though he has introduced unnecessarily many obsolete terms into them; there is a flow of poetry, an elegance of sentiment, a fund of imagination, and an enchanting enthusiasm which will ever secure him the applause of posterity while any lovers of poetry remain” 1).

1) Vol. I, p. 100.