ady Una cries out:

... Now, now, sir knight, shew what ye bee,
_Add faith unto thy force_, and be not faint.
Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee.

He follows her advice, makes one desperate effort, Error is slain, and the
pilgrimage resumed.

Thus it is taught that the Church has waged successful battle with Error
in all its forms--paganism, Arianism, Socinianism, infidelity; and in all
ages of her history, whether crouching in the lofty groves of the Druids,
or in the more insidious forms of later Christian heresy.

THE HERMITAGE.--On leaving the Wood of Error, the knight and Lady Una
encounter a venerable hermit, and are led into his hermitage. This is
_Archimago_, a vile magician thus disguised, and in his retreat foul
spirits personate both knight and lady, and present these false doubles to
each. Each sees what seems to be the other's fall from virtue, and,
horrified by the sight, the real persons leave the hermitage by separate
ways, and wander, in inextricable mazes lost, until fortune and faery
bring them together again and disclose the truth.

Here Spenser, who was a zealous Protestant, designs to present the
monastic system, the disfavor into which the monasteries had fallen, and
the black arts secretly studied among better arts in the cloisters,
especially in the period just succeeding the Norman conquest.

THE CRUSADES.--As another specimen of the historic interpretation, we may
trace the adventures of England in the Crusades, as presented in the
encounter of St. George with _Sansfoy_, (without faith,) or the Infidel.

From the hermitage of Archimago,

The true St. George had wandered far away,
Still flying from his thoughts and jealous fear,
Will was his guide, and grief led him astray;
At last him chanced to meet upon the way
A faithless Saracen all armed to point,
In whose great shield was writ with letters gay
SANSFOY: full large of limb, and every joint
He was, and cared not for God or man a point.

Well might the poet speak of Mohammedanism as large of limb, for it had
stretched itself like a Colossus to India, and through Northern Africa
into Spain, where it threatened Christendom, beyond the Pyrenees. It was
then that the unity of the Church, the concurrence of Europe in one form
of Christianity, made available the enthusiasm which succeeded in stemming
the torrent of Islam, and setting bounds to its conquests.

It is