adjective in the sense of "too," as, _weaker_ (I, xlv), harder (II, xxxvi);
the participial construction after _till_, as, _till further tryall made_
(I, xii); the superlative of location, as, _middest_ (IV, xv); and the old
gerundive, as, _wandering wood_ (I, xiii). Most of the gallicisms found are
anglicized loan words from the French _romans d'aventure_, such as,
_disseized_, _cheare_, _chappell_, _assoiled_, _guerdon_, _palfrey_,
_recreaunt_, _trenchand_, _syre_, and _trusse_. Notwithstanding Spenser's
use of foreign words and constructions, his language is as thoroughly
English in its idiom as that of any of our great poets.

"I think that if he had not been a great poet," says Leigh Hunt, "he would
have been a great painter."

"After reading," says Pope, "a canto of Spenser two or three days ago to an
old lady, between seventy and eighty years of age, she said that I had been
showing her a gallery of pictures. I do not know how it is, but she said
very right. There is something in Spenser that pleases one as strongly in
old age as it did in youth. I read the _Faerie Queene_ when I was about
twelve, with infinite delight; and I think it gave me as much, when I read
it over about a year or two ago."

The imperishable charm of the poem lies in its appeal to the pure sense of
beauty. "A beautiful pagan dream," says Taine, "carries on a beautiful
dream of chivalry." The reader hears in its lines a stately and undulating
rhythm that intoxicates the ear and carries him on with an irresistible
fascination, he sees the unsubstantial forms of fairyland go sweeping by in
a gorgeous and dreamlike pageantry, and he feels pulsing in its luxuriant
and enchanted atmosphere the warm and beauty-loving temper of the Italian
Renaissance. "Spenser is superior to his subject," says Taine, "comprehends
it fully, frames it with a view to the end, in order to impress upon it the