allegory. This last characteristic attaches
it on the other side to the poems of the _Roman de la Rose_ order, which
succeeded the _Romans d'Aventures_ as objects of literary interest and
practice, not merely in France, but throughout Europe. This allegory has
been variously estimated as a merit or defect of the poem. It is sometimes
political, oftener religious, very often moral, and sometimes purely
personal--the identifications in this latter case being sometimes clear, as
that of Gloriana, Britomart, and Belphoebe with Queen Elizabeth, sometimes
probable, as that of Duessa with Queen Mary (not one of Spenser's most
knightly actions), and of Prince Arthur with Leicester, and sometimes more
or less problematical, as that of Artegall with Lord Grey, of Timias the
Squire with Raleigh, and so forth. To those who are perplexed by these
double meanings the best remark is Hazlitt's blunt one that "the allegory
won't bite them." In other words, it is always perfectly possible to enjoy
the poem without troubling oneself about the allegory at all, except in its
broad ethical features, which are quite unmistakable. On the other hand, I
am inclined to think that the presence of these under-meanings, with the
interest which they give to a moderately instructed and intelligent person
who, without too desperate a determination to see into millstones,
understands "words to the wise," is a great addition to the hold of the
poem over the attention, and saves it from the charge of mere
desultoriness, which some, at least, of the other greatest poems of the
kind (notably its immediate exemplar, the _Orlando Furioso_) must undergo.
And here it may be noted that the charge made by most foreign critics who
have busied themselves with Spenser, and perhaps by some of his countrymen,
that he is, if not a mere paraphrast, yet little more than a transplanter
into English of the Italian, is glaringly uncritical. Not, perhaps, till
Ariosto and Tasso have been carefully read in the original, is Spenser's
real greatness understood. He has often, and evidently of purpose,
challenged comparison; but in every instance it will be found that his
beauties are emphatically his own. He has followed his leaders only as
Virgil has followed Homer; and much less slavishly.

It is strange to find English critics of this great if not greatest English
poem even nowadays repeating that Spenser borrowed his wonderful stanza
from the Italians. He did nothing of the k