ellows," has even more of
this high picturesque character. Nobody but Rubens could have painted the
fancy of Spenser; and he could not have given the sentiment, the airy
dream that hovers over it!

With all this, Spenser neither makes us laugh nor weep. The only jest in
his poem is an allegorical play upon words, where he describes Malbecco as
escaping in the herd of goats, "by the help of his fayre horns on hight."
But he has been unjustly charged with a want of passion and of strength.
He has both in an immense degree. He has not indeed the pathos of
immediate action or suffering, which is more properly the dramatic; but he
has all the pathos of sentiment and romance--all that belongs to distant
objects of terror, and uncertain, imaginary distress. His strength, in
like manner, is not strength of will or action, of bone and muscle, nor is
it coarse and palpable--but it assumes a character of vastness and
sublimity seen through the same visionary medium, and blended with the
appalling associations of preternatural agency. We need only turn, in
proof of this, to the Cave of Despair, or the Cave of Mammon, or to the
account of the change of Malbecco into Jealousy. The following stanzas,
in the description of the Cave of Mammon, the grisly house of Plutus, are
unrivalled for the portentous massiness of the forms, the splendid
chiaro-scuro, and shadowy horror.

"That house's form within was rude and strong,
Like an huge cave hewn out of rocky clift,
From whose rough vault the ragged breaches hung,
Embossed with massy gold of glorious gift,
And with rich metal loaded every rift.
That heavy ruin they did seem to threat:
And over them Arachne high did lift
Her cunning web, and spread her subtle net,
Enwrapped in foul smoke, and clouds more black than jet.

Both roof and floor, and walls were all of gold,
But overgrown with dust and old decay,[126]
And hid in darkness that none could behold
The hue thereof: for view of cheerful day
Did never in that house itself display,
But a faint shadow of uncertain light;
Such as a lamp whose light doth fade away;
Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night
Does shew to him that walks in fear and sad affright.

* * * * *

And over all sad Horror with grim hue
Did always soar, beating his iron wings;
And after him owls and night-ravens flew,
The hate