e and eek daunce, and wel purtraye and write,"

Edwin wanders alone upon the mountains and in solitary places and is
instructed in history, philosophy, and science--and even in Vergil--by an
aged hermit, who sits on a mossy rock, with his harp beside him, and
delivers lectures. The subject of the poem, indeed, is properly the
education of nature; and in a way it anticipates Wordsworth's "Prelude,"
as this hoary sage does the "Solitary" of "The Excursion." Beattie
justifies his use of Spenser's stanza on the ground that it "seems, from
its Gothic structure and original, to bear some relation to the subject
and spirit of the poem." He makes no attempt, however, to follow
Spenser's "antique expressions." The following passage will illustrate
as well as any the romantic character of the whole:

"When the long-sounding curfew from afar
Loaded with loud lament the lonely gale,
Young Edwin, lighted by the evening star,
Lingering and listening, wandered down the vale.
There would he dream of graves and corses pale,
And ghosts that to the charnel-dungeon throng,
And drag a length of clanking chain, and wail,
Till silenced by the owl's terrific song,
Or blast that shrieks by fits the shuddering aisles along.

"Or when the settling moon, in crimson dyed,
Hung o'er the dark and melancholy deep,
To haunted stream, remote from man, he hied,
Where fays of yore their revels wont to keep;
And there let Fancy rove at large, till sleep
A vision brought to his entranced sight.
And first a wildly murmuring wind gan creep
Shrill to his ringing ear; then tapers bright,
With instantaneous gleam, illumed the vault of night.

"Anon in view a portal's blazing arch
Arose; the trumpet bids the valves unfold;
And forth a host of little warriors march,
Grasping the diamond lance and targe of gold.
Their look was gentle, their demeanor bold,
And green their helms, and green their silk attire;
And here and there, right venerably old,
The long-robed minstrels wake the warbling wire,
And some with mellow breath the martial pipe inspire."[53]

The influence of Thomson is clearly perceptible in these stanzas. "The
Minstrel," like "The Seasons," abounds in insipid morality, the
commonplaces of denunciation against luxury and ambition, and the praise
of simplicity and innocence. The titles alone of Beattie's minor poems
are enough to s