"What was honour knew,"

And who displayed--

"Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth,
That would be wooed, and not unsought be won."

To sum up all, the nuptial sanctity draws its hallowed curtains, and a
masterly allegory shuts up the love-scenes of Camoens.

How different from all this is the island of Armida in Tasso, and its
translation, the bower of Acrasia in Spenser! In these virtue is
seduced; the scene therefore is less delicate. The nymphs, while they
are bathing, in place of the modesty of the bride as in Camoens, employ
all the arts of the lascivious wanton. They stay not to be wooed; but,
as Spenser gives it--

_The amorous sweet spoils to greedy eyes reveal._

One stanza from our English poet, which, however, is rather fuller than
the original, shall here suffice:--

"Withal she laughed and she blush'd withal,
That blushing to her laughter gave more grace,
And laughter to her blushing, as did fall.
Now when they spy'd the knight to slack his pace,
Them to behold, and _in his sparkling face
The secret signs of kindled lust appear_,
Their wanton merriments they did increase,
And to him beckon'd to approach more near,
_And show'd him many sights, that courage cold could rear_.

This and other descriptions--

"Upon a bed of roses she was laid
As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin"--

present every idea of lascivious voluptuousness. The allurements of
speech are also added. Songs, which breathe every persuasive, are heard;
and the nymphs boldly call to the beholder:--

_E' dolce campo di battaglia il letto
Fiavi, e l'herbetta morbida de' prati._--TASSO.

"Our field of battle is the downy bed,
Or flow'ry turf amid the smiling mead."--HOOLE.

These, and the whole scenes in the domains of Armida and Acrasia, are in
a turn of manner the reverse of the island of Venus. In these the
expression and idea are meretricious. In Camoens, though the colouring
is even warmer, yet the modesty of the Venus de Medicis is still
preserved. In everything he describes there is still something strongly
similar to the modest attitude of the arms of that celebrated statue.
Though prudery, that usual mask of the impurest minds, may condemn him,
yet those of the most chaste, though less gloomy turn, will allow, that
in comparison with others, he might say,--_Virginibus puerisque canto_.

Spenser also, where he does not follow