was begun by a most unlikely
person, Matthew Prior, whose "Ode to the Queen," 1706, was in a ten-lined
modification of Spenser's stanza and employed a few archaisms like _weet_
and _ween_, but was very unspenserian in manner. As early as the second
decade of the century, the horns of Elfland may be heard faintly blowing
in the poems of the Rev. Samuel Croxall, the translator of Aesop's
"Fables." Mr. Gosse[23] quotes Croxall's own description of his poetry,
as designed "to set off the dry and insipid stuff" of the age with "a
whole piece of rich and glowing scarlet." His two pieces "The Vision,"
1715, and "The Fair Circassian," 1720, though written in the couplet,
exhibit a rosiness of color and a luxuriance of imagery manifestly
learned from Spenser. In 1713 he had published under the pseudonym of
Nestor Ironside, "An Original Canto of Spenser," and in 1714 "Another
Original Canto," both, of course, in the stanza of the "Faerie Queene."
The example thus set was followed before the end of the century by scores
of poets, including many well-known names, like Akenside, Thomson,
Shenstone, and Thomas Warton, as well as many second-rate and third-rate
versifiers.[24]

It is noteworthy that many, if not most, of the imitations were at first
undertaken in a spirit of burlesque; as is plain not only from the poems
themselves, but from the correspondence of Shenstone and others.[25] The
antiquated speech of an old author is in itself a challenge to the
parodist: _teste_ our modern ballad imitations. There is something
ludicrous about the very look of antique spelling, and in the sound of
words like _eftsoones_ and _perdy_; while the sign _Ye Olde Booke Store_,
in Old English text over a bookseller's door, strikes the public
invariably as a most merry conceited jest; especially if the first letter
be pronounced as a _y_, instead of, what it really is, a mere
abbreviation of _th_. But in order that this may be so, the language
travestied should not be too old. There would be nothing amusing, for
example, in a burlesque imitation of Beowulf, because the Anglo-Saxon of
the original is utterly strange to the modern reader. It is conceivable
that quick-witted Athenians of the time of Aristophanes might find
something quaint in Homer's Ionic dialect, akin to that quaintness which
we find in Chaucer; but a Grecian of to-day would need to be very Attic
indeed, to detect any provocation to mirth in the use of the genitive
in-oio