The
Fletchers, unable to impart this interest, or unconscious of the necessity
of imparting it, lose themselves in shallow overflowings like a stream that
overruns its bank. But Giles was a master of gorgeous colouring in phrase
and rhythm, while in _The Purple Island_ there are detached passages not
quite unworthy of Spenser, when he is not at his very best--that is to say,
worthy of almost any English poet. Phineas, moreover, has, to leave
_Britain's Ida_ alone, a not inconsiderable amount of other work. His
Piscatory Eclogues show the influence of _The Shepherd's Calendar_ as
closely as, perhaps more happily than, _The Purple Island_ shows the
influence of _The Faerie Queene_, and in his miscellanies there is much
musical verse. It is, however, very noticeable that even in these
occasional poems his vehicle is usually either the actual stanza of the
_Island_, or something equally elaborate, unsuited though such stanzas
often are to the purpose. These two poets indeed, though in poetical
capacity they surpassed all but one or two veterans of their own
generation, seem to have been wholly subdued and carried away by the mighty
flood of their master's poetical production. It is probable that, had he
not written, they would not have written at all; yet it is possible that,
had he not written, they would have produced something much more original
and valuable. It ought to be mentioned that the influence of both upon
Milton, directly and as handing on the tradition of Spenser, was evidently
very great. The strong Cambridge flavour (not very perceptible in Spenser
himself, but of which Milton is, at any rate in his early poems, full)
comes out in them, and from _Christ's Victory_ at any rate the poet of
_Lycidas_, the _Ode on the Nativity_, and _Paradise Regained_, apparently
"took up," as the phrase of his own day went, not a few commodities.

The same rich borrower owed something to William Browne, who, in his turn,
like the Fletchers, but with a much less extensive indebtedness, levied on
Spenser. Browne, however, was free from the _genius loci_, being a
Devonshire man born and of Exeter College, Oxford, by education. He was
born, they say, in 1591, published the first part of _Britannia's
Pastorals_ in 1613, made many literary and some noble acquaintances, is
thought to have lived for some time at Oxford as a tutor, and either in
Surrey or in his native county for the rest of his life, which is (not
certainly) said to h