therefore a
share given him in every legend; but his part is not considerable
enough in any one of them. He appears and vanishes again like a
spirit, and we lose sight of him too soon to consider him as the hero
of the poem. These are the most obvious defects in the fable of the
Fairy Queen. The want of unity in the story makes it difficult for the
reader to carry it in his mind, and distracts too much his attention
to the several parts of it; and indeed the whole frame of it would
appear monstrous, were it to be examined by the rules of epic poetry,
as they have been drawn from the practice of Homer and Virgil; but as
it is plain, the author never designed it by these rules, I think it
ought rather to be called a poem of a particular kind, describing in a
series of allegorical adventures, or episodes, the most noted virtues
and vices. To compare it therefore with the models of antiquity, would
be like drawing a parallel between the Roman and Gothic architecture.
In the first, there is doubtless a more natural grandeur and
simplicity; in the latter, we find great mixtures of beauty and
barbarism, yet assisted by the invention of a variety of inferior
ornaments; and tho' the former is more majestic in the whole, the
latter may be very surprizing and agreeable in its parts.

[Footnote 1: Hughes's Life of Spencer, prefixed to the edition of our
author's works.]

[Footnote 2: Hughes ubi supra,]

[Footnote 3: Winst. p. 88.]

[Footnote 4: Dublin]

[Footnote 5: The General of the English army in Ireland.]

* * * * *

JASPER HEYWOOD,

the son of the celebrated epigramatist, was born in London, and in the
12th year of his age, 1517, was sent to the University, where he was
educated in grammar and logic. In 1553 he took a degree in Arts, and
was immediately elected Probationer fellow of Merton College, where he
gained a superiority over all his fellow students in disputations at
the public school. Wood informs us, that upon a third admonition, from
the warden and society of that house, he resigned his fellowship, to
prevent expulsion, on the 4th of April, 1558; he had been guilty of
several misdemeanors, such as are peculiar to youth, wildness and
rakishness, which in those days it seems were very severely punished.
Soon after this he quitted England, and entered himself into the
society of Jesus at St. Omer's [1]; but before he left his native
country, he writ and translated (says Wo