"
Such examples serve to show how strong a dose of Spenser's _aurum
potabile_ the language needed.
[289] I could not bring myself to root out this odorous herb-garden,
though it make my extract too long. It is a pretty reminiscence of
his master Chaucer, but is also very characteristic of Spenser
himself. He could not help planting a flower or two among his
serviceable plants, and after all this abundance he is not satisfied,
but begins the next stanza with "And whatso _else_."
[290] Leigh Hunt's Indicator, XVII.
[291] Ben Jonson told Drummond "that in that paper Sir W. Raleigh had
of the allegories of his Faery Queen, by the Blatant Beast the
Puritans were understood." But this is certainly wrong. There were
very different shades of Puritanism, according to individual
temperament. That of Winthrop and Higginson had a mellowness of which
Endicott and Standish were incapable The gradual change of Milton's
opinions was similar to that which I suppose in Spenser. The passage
in Mother Hubberd may have been aimed at the Protestant clergy of
Ireland (for he says much the same thing in his "View of the State of
Ireland"), but it is general in its terms.
[292] Two of his eclogues, as I have said, are from Marot, and his
earliest known verses are translations from Bellay, a poet who was
charming whenever he had the courage to play truant from a bad
school.
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