nt genius
or manners of different times; and they should never be spun too long,
or too much clogged with trivial circumstances, or little
particularities. We find an uncommon charm in truth, when it is conveyed
by this sideway to our understanding: and it is observable, that even in
the most ignorant ages this way of writing has found reception. Almost
all the poems in the old Provencal had this turn; and from these it was
that Petrarch took the idea of his poetry. We have his Trionfi in this
kind; and Boccace pursued in the same track. Soon after, Chaucer
introduced it here, whose Romaunt of the Rose, Court of Love, Flower and
the Leaf, House of Fame, and some others of his writings, are
masterpieces of this sort. In epic poetry, it is true, too nice and
exact a pursuit of the allegory is justly esteemed a fault; and Chaucer
had the discernment to avoid it in his Knight's Tale, which was an
attempt towards an epic poem. Ariosto, with less judgment, gave entirely
into it in his Orlando; which, though carried to an excess, had yet so
much reputation in Italy, that Tasso (who reduced heroic poetry to the
juster standard of the ancients) was forced to prefix to his work a
scrupulous explanation of the allegory of it, to which the fable itself
could scarce have directed his readers. Our countryman, Spenser,
followed, whose poem is almost entirely allegorical, and imitates the
manner of Ariosto rather than that of Tasso. Upon the whole, one may
observe this sort of writing, however discontinued of late, was in all
times, so far from being rejected by the best poets, that some of them
have rather erred by insisting on it too closely, and carrying it too
far; and that to infer from thence that the allegory itself is vicious,
is a presumptuous contradiction to the judgment and practice of the
greatest geniuses, both ancient and modern.--POPE.

Pope, as he tells Steele in their correspondence (Nov. 16, 1712), had
written the Temple of Fame two years before, that is, when he was only
twenty-two years old, an early time of life for so much learning and so
much observation as that work exhibits. It has, as Steele warmly
declared, a "thousand beauties." Every part is splendid; there is great
luxuriance of ornaments; the original vision of Chaucer was never denied
to be much improved; the allegory is very skilfully continued, the
imagery is properly selected and learnedly displayed; yet with all this
comprehension of excellence, as