eauty.
Spenser's perception of beauty of all kinds was singularly and
characteristically quick and sympathetic. It was one of his great gifts;
perhaps the most special and unstinted. Except Shakespere, who had it
with other and greater gifts, no one in that time approached to Spenser,
in feeling the presence of that commanding and mysterious idea,
compounded of so many things, yet of which, the true secret escapes us
still, to which we give the name of beauty. A beautiful scene, a
beautiful person, a beautiful poem, a mind and character with that
combination of charms, which, for want of another word, we call by that
half-spiritual, half-material word "beautiful," at once set his
imagination at work to respond to it and reflect it. His means of
reflecting it were as abundant as his sense of it was keen. They were
only too abundant. They often betrayed him by their affluence and
wonderful readiness to meet his call. Say what we will, and a great deal
may be said, of his lavish profusion, his heady and uncontrolled excess,
in the richness of picture and imagery in which he indulges,--still
there it lies before us, like the most gorgeous of summer gardens, in
the glory and brilliancy of its varied blooms, in the wonder of its
strange forms of life, in the changefulness of its exquisite and
delicious scents. No one who cares for poetic beauty can be insensible
to it. He may criticize it. He may have too much of it. He may prefer
something more severe and chastened. He may observe on the waste of
wealth and power. He may blame the prodigal expense of language, and the
long spaces which the poet takes up to produce his effect. He may often
dislike or distrust the moral aspect of the poet's impartial
sensitiveness to all outward beauty,--the impartiality which makes him
throw all his strength into his pictures of Acrasia's Bower of Bliss,
the Garden of Adonis, and Busirane's Masque of Cupid. But there is no
gainsaying the beauty which never fails and disappoints, open the poem
where you will. There is no gainsaying its variety, often so unexpected
and novel. Face to face with the Epicurean idea of beauty and pleasure
is the counter-charm of purity, truth, and duty. Many poets have done
justice to each one separately. Few have shown, with such equal power,
why it is that both have their roots in man's divided nature, and
struggle, as it were, for the mastery. Which can be said to be the most
exquisite in all beauty of imaginatio