s a great
deal of good sense. What we have lost is a world of fine fabling, the
illusion of which is so grateful to the _charmed spirit_ that, in spite
of philosophy and fashion 'Faery' Spenser still ranks highest among the
poets; I mean with all those who are earlier come of that house, or have
any kindness for it."

We have seen that, during the classical period, "Gothic," as a term in
literary criticism, was synonymous with barbarous, lawless, and tawdry.
Addison instructs his public that "the taste of most of our English
poets, as well as readers, is extremely Gothic."[3] After commending the
French critics, Bouhours and Boileau, for their insistence upon good
sense, justness of thought, simplicity, and naturalness he goes on as
follows: "Poets who want this strength of genius, to give that majestic
simplicity to nature which we so much admire in the works of the
ancients, are forced to hunt after foreign ornaments, and not to let any
piece of wit, of what kind soever, escape them. I look upon these
writers as Goths in poetry, who, like those in architecture, not being
able to come up to the beautiful simplicity of the old Greeks and Romans,
have endeavored to supply its place with all the extravagances of an
irregular fancy." In the following paper (No. 63), an "allegorical
vision of the encounter of True and False Wit," he discovers, "in a very
dark grove, a monstrous fabric, built after the Gothic manner and covered
with innumerable devices in that barbarous kind of sculpture." This
temple is consecrated to the God of Dullness, who is "dressed in the
habit of a monk." In his essay "On Taste" (No. 409) he says, "I have
endeavored, in several of my speculations, to banish this Gothic taste
which has taken possession among us."

The particular literary vice which Addison strove to correct in these
papers was that conceited style which infected a certain school of
seventeenth-century poetry, running sometimes into such puerilities as
anagrams, acrostics, echo-songs, rebuses, and verses in the shape of
eggs, wings, hour-glasses, etc. He names, as special representatives of
this affectation, Herbert, Cowley, and Sylvester. But it is significant
that Addison should have described this fashion as Gothic. It has in
reality nothing in common with the sincere and loving art of the old
builders. He might just as well have called it classic; for, as he
acknowledges, devices of the kind are to be found in the Greek a