By now I've read so many messages that I can't remember if anybody quoted
the following lines that are reprinted in David Radcliffe's most
entertaining history of Spenser's reception. Lady Mary Chudleigh
(1656-1710) is describing literary history from the dark ages to the
present time, ablaze with light now that we have Dryden. Gradually, over
time, English poetry has luminesced:
Such in this Isle was once our wretched State:
Dark melancholy Night her sable Wings display'd,
And all around her baleful influence shed;
Till Chaucer came with his delusive Light,
And gave some transient Glimmrings to the Night:
Next kinder Spencer with his Lunar Beams
Inrich'd our Skies, and wak'd us from our Dreams
Then pleasing Visions did our Minds delight . . . .
From pp. 57-58, quoting Ezell's edition p. 70; the original is
1703. Nothing on Homer to Virgil, but the same sense of an evolution to
modern polish and illumination. Another bit, found also in the Critical
Heritage collection of Spenser stuff, is Samuel Cobb's *Poetae Britannia*
(1700) calling Chaucer "Our English Ennius" who had a lot of natural
talent, "tho' unskilled in Art. / The sparkling Diamond on his Dung-hill
shines, / And Golden Fragments glitter in his Lines. / Which Spencer
gather'd for his Learning known, / And by successful Gleanings made his
own. / So careful Bees, on a fair Summer's Day, / Hum o'er the Flowers,
and suck the sweets away." If Chaucer is Ennius, then Spenser is
Virgil. If this passage has already been quoted, I apologize. Anne P.
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