e, a portion of the _Fairy
Queen_ in some shape or another, and these nine comedies. He was
standing at the parting of the ways. The allegory, with all its tempting
associations and machinery, with its ingenuities and pictures, and
boundless license to vagueness and to fancy, was on one side; and on the
other, the drama, with its _prima facie_ and superficially prosaic
aspects, and its kinship to what was customary and commonplace and
unromantic in human life. Of the nine comedies, composed on the model of
those of Ariosto and Machiavelli and other Italians, every trace has
perished. But this was Gabriel Harvey's opinion of the respective value
of the two specimens of work submitted to him, and this was his counsel
to their author. In April, 1580, he thus writes to Spenser.

In good faith I had once again nigh forgotten your _Faerie
Queene_; howbeit, by good chance, I have now sent her home at
the last neither in better or worse case than I found her. And
must you of necessity have my judgement of her indeed? To be
plain, I am void of all judgement, if your _Nine Comedies_,
whereunto in imitation of Herodotus, you give the names of the
Nine Muses (and in one man's fancy not unworthily), come not
nearer Ariosto's comedies, either for the fineness of
plausible elocution, or the rareness of poetical invention,
than that _Elvish Queen_ doth to his _Orlando Furioso_, which
notwithstanding you will needs seem to emulate, and hope to
overgo, as you flatly professed yourself in one of your last
letters.

Besides that you know, it hath been the usual practice of the
most exquisite and odd wits in all nations, and specially in
Italy rather to show, and advance themselves that way than any
other: as, namely, those three notorious discoursing heads,
Bibiena, Machiavel, and Aretino did (to let Bembo and Ariosto
pass) with the great admiration and wonderment of the whole
country: being indeed reputed matchable in all points, both
for conceit of wit and eloquent deciphering of matters, either
with Aristophanes and Menander in Greek, or with Plautus and
Terence in Latin, or with any other in any other tongue. But I
will not stand greatly with you in your own matters. If so be
the _Faery Queene_ be fairer in your eye than the Nine Muses,
and Hobgoblin run away with the garland from Apollo: mark what
I