onfused.

According to the plan thus sketched out, we have but a fragment of the
work. It was published in two parcels, each of three books, in 1590 and
1596; and after his death two cantos, with two stray stanzas, of a
seventh book were found and printed. Each perfect book consists of
twelve cantos of from thirty-five to sixty of his nine-line stanzas. The
books published in 1590 contain, as he states in his prefatory letter,
the legends of _Holiness_, of _Temperance_, and of _Chastity_. Those
published in 1596, contain the legends of _Friendship_, of _Justice_,
and of _Courtesy_. The posthumous cantos are entitled, _Of Mutability_,
and are said to be apparently parcel of a legend of _Constancy_. The
poem which was to treat of the "politic" virtues was never approached.
Thus we have but a fourth part of the whole of the projected work. It is
very doubtful whether the remaining six books were completed. But it is
probable that a portion of them was written, which, except the cantos
_On Mutability_, has perished. And the intended titles or legends of the
later books have not been preserved.

Thus the poem was to be an allegorical story; a story branching out into
twelve separate stories, which themselves would branch out again and
involve endless other stories. It is a complex scheme to keep well in
hand, and Spenser's art in doing so has been praised by some of his
critics. But the art, if there is any, is so subtle that it fails to
save the reader from perplexity. The truth is that the power of ordering
and connecting a long and complicated plan was not one of Spenser's
gifts. In the first two books, the allegorical story proceeds from point
to point with fair coherence and consecutiveness. After them the attempt
to hold the scheme together, except in the loosest and most general way,
is given up as too troublesome or too confined. The poet prefixes indeed
the name of a particular virtue to each book, but, with slender
reference to it, he surrenders himself freely to his abundant flow of
ideas, and to whatever fancy or invention tempts him, and ranges
unrestrained over the whole field of knowledge and imagination. In the
first two books, the allegory is transparent and the story connected.
The allegory is of the nature of the _Pilgrim's Progress_. It starts
from the belief that religion, purified from falsehood, superstition,
and sin, is the foundation of all nobleness in man; and it portrays,
under images and with na