most smooth and the most sounding in the
language. It is a labyrinth of sweet sounds, "in many a winding bout of
linked sweetness long drawn out"--that would cloy by their very sweetness,
but that the ear is constantly relieved and enchanted by their continued
variety of modulation--dwelling on the pauses of the action, or flowing on
in a fuller tide of harmony with the movement of the sentiment. It has not
the bold dramatic transitions of Shakspeare's blank verse, nor the
high-raised tone of Milton's; but it is the perfection of melting harmony,
dissolving the soul in pleasure, or holding it captive in the chains of
suspense. Spenser was the poet of our waking dreams; and he has invented
not only a language, but a music of his own for them. The undulations are
infinite, like those of the waves of the sea: but the effect is still the
same, lulling the senses into a deep oblivion of the jarring noises of the
world, from which we have no wish to be ever recalled.

III

SHAKSPEARE

The four greatest names in English poetry, are almost the four first we
come to--Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton. There are no others
that can really be put in competition with these. The two last have had
justice done them by the voice of common fame. Their names are blazoned in
the very firmament of reputation; while the two first, (though "the fault
has been more in their stars than in themselves that they are underlings")
either never emerged far above the horizon, or were too soon involved in
the obscurity of time. The three first of these are excluded from Dr.
Johnson's Lives of the Poets (Shakspeare indeed is so from the dramatic
form of his compositions): and the fourth, Milton, is admitted with a
reluctant and churlish welcome.

In comparing these four writers together, it might be said that Chaucer
excels as the poet of manners, or of real life; Spenser, as the poet of
romance; Shakspeare, as the poet of nature (in the largest use of the
term): and Milton, as the poet of morality. Chaucer most frequently
describes things as they are: Spenser, as we wish them to be; Shakspeare,
as they would be; and Milton as they ought to be. As poets, and as great
poets, imagination, that is, the power of feigning things according to
nature, was common to them all: but the principle or moving power, to
which this faculty was most subservient in Chaucer, was habit, or
inveterate prejudice; in Spenser, novelty, and the love of the