anted boat, angel-guided, floating on away, afar,
without conscious purpose, but simply obeying the instinct of sweet poetry,
is not an extravagant symbol for the mind of a reader of Spenser. If such
readers want "Criticisms of Life" first of all, they must go elsewhere,
though they will find them amply given, subject to the limitations of the
poetical method. If they want story they may complain of slackness and
deviations. If they want glorifications of science and such like things,
they had better shut the book at once, and read no more on that day nor on
any other. But if they want poetry--if they want to be translated from a
world which is not one of beauty only into one where the very uglinesses
are beautiful, into a world of perfect harmony in colour and sound, of an
endless sequence of engaging event and character, of noble passions and
actions not lacking their due contrast, then let them go to Spenser with a
certainty of satisfaction. He is not, as are some poets, the poet of a
certain time of life to the exclusion of others. He may be read in
childhood chiefly for his adventure, in later youth for his display of
voluptuous beauty, in manhood for his ethical and historical weight, in age
for all combined, and for the contrast which his bright universe of
invention affords with the work-day jejuneness of this troublesome world.
But he never palls upon those who have once learnt to taste him; and no
poet is so little of an acquired taste to those who have any liking for
poetry at all. He has been called the poet's poet--a phrase honourable but
a little misleading, inasmuch as it first suggests that he is not the poet
of the great majority of readers who cannot pretend to be poets themselves,
and secondly insinuates a kind of intellectual and aesthetic Pharisaism in
those who do admire him, which may be justly resented by those who do not.
Let us rather say that he is the poet of all others for those who seek in
poetry only poetical qualities, and we shall say not only what is more than
enough to establish his greatness but what, as I for one believe, can be
maintained in the teeth of all gainsayers.[23]

[23] Of Spenser as of two other poets in this volume, Shakespere and
Milton, it seemed to be unnecessary and even impertinent to give any
extracts. Their works are, or ought to be, in all hands; and even if it
were not so, no space at my command could give sample of their infinite
varieties.

The volume, variety