ser's richness of imagery and the soft modulation of his verse, he
succeeds only in becoming tediously ornate. His stanzas are nerveless,
though not unmusical. His college exercise, "The Nativity," 1736, is a
Christmas vision which comes to the shepherd boy Thomalin, as he is
piping on the banks of Isis. It employs the pastoral machinery, includes
a masque of virtues,--Faith, Hope, Mercy, etc.,--and closes with a
compliment to Pope's "Messiah." The preface to his "Hymn to May," has
some bearing upon our inquiries: "As Spenser is the most descriptive and
florid of all our English writers, I attempted to imitate his manner in
the following vernal poem. I have been very sparing of the antiquated
words which are too frequent in most of the imitations of this
author. . . His lines are most musically sweet, and his descriptions
most delicately abundant, even to a wantonness of painting, but still it
is the music and painting of nature. We find no ambitious ornaments or
epigrammatical turns in his writings, but a beautiful simplicity which
pleases far above the glitter of pointed wit." The "Hymn to May" is in
the seven-lined stanza of Phineas Fletcher's "Purple Island"; a poem,
says Thompson, "scarce heard of in this age, yet the best in the
allegorical way (next to 'The Fairy Queen') in the English language."

William Wilkie, a Scotch minister and professor, of eccentric habits and
untidy appearance, published, in 1759, "A Dream: in the Manner of
Spenser," which may be mentioned here not for its own sake, but for the
evidence that it affords of a growing impatience of classical restraints.
The piece was a pendant to Wilkie's epic, the "Epigoniad." Walking by
the Tweed, the poet falls asleep and has a vision of Homer, who
reproaches him with the bareness of style in his "Epigoniad." The
dreamer puts the blame upon the critics,

"Who tie the muses to such rigid laws
That all their songs are frivolous and poor."

Shakspere, indeed,

"Broke all the cobweb limits fixed by fools";

but the only reward of his boldness

"Is that our dull, degenerate age of lead
Says that he wrote by chance, and that he scare could read."

One of the earlier Spenserians was Gilbert West, the translator of
Pindar, who published, in 1739, "On the Abuse of Travelling: A Canto in
Imitation of Spenser."[27] Another imitation, "Education," appeared in
1751. West was a very tame poet, and the only quality of Spenser's