For my own part, I am quite willing to
confess that I like him none the worse for being _un_practical, and that
my reading has convinced me that being too poetical is the rarest fault
of poets. Practical men are not so scarce, one would think, and I am not
sure that the tree was a gainer when the hamadryad flitted and left it
nothing but ship-timber. Such men as Spenser are not sent into the world
to be part of its motive power. The blind old engine would not know the
difference though we got up its steam with attar of roses, nor make one
revolution more to the minute for it. What practical man ever left such
an heirloom to his countrymen as the "Faery Queen"?
Undoubtedly Spenser wished to be useful and in the highest vocation of
all, that of teacher, and Milton calls him "our sage and serious poet,
whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas."
And good Dr. Henry More was of the same mind. I fear he makes his vices
so beautiful now and then that we should not be very much afraid of them
if we chanced to meet them; for he could not escape from his genius,
which, if it led him as philosopher to the abstract contemplation of the
beautiful, left him as poet open to every impression of sensuous delight.
When he wrote the "Shepherd's Calendar" he was certainly a Puritan, and
probably so by conviction rather than from any social influences or
thought of personal interests.
Pages:
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236