third folio of the "Faërie Queene"--in 1679, but no critical edition till
1715. Meanwhile the title of a book issued in 1687 shows that Spenser
did not escape that process of "improvement" which we have seen applied
to Shakspere: "Spenser Redivivus; containing the First Book of the 'Faëry
Queene.' His Essential Design Preserved, but his Obsolete Language and
Manner of Verse totally laid aside. Delivered in Heroic Numbers by a
Person of Quality." The preface praises Spenser, but declares that "his
style seems no less unintelligible at this day than the obsoletest of our
English or Saxon dialect." One instance of this deliverance into heroic
numbers must suffice:

"By this the northern wagoner had set
His sevenfold team behind the steadfast star
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firm is fixed, and sendeth light from far
To all that in the wide deep wandering are."
--_Spenser_.[22]

In 1715 John Hughes published his edition of Spenser's works in six
volumes. This was the first attempt at a critical text of the poet, and
was accompanied with a biography, a glossary, an essay on allegorical
poetry, and some remarks on the "Faërie Queene." It is curious to find
in the engravings, from designs by Du Guernier, which illustrate Hughes'
volumes, that Spenser's knights wore the helmets and body armor of the
Roman legionaries, over which is occasionally thrown something that looks
very much like a toga. The lists in which they run a tilt have the
façade of a Greek temple for a background. The house of Busyrane is
Louis Quatorze architecture, and Amoret is chained to a renaissance
column with Corinthian capital and classical draperies. Hughes' glossary
of obsolete terms includes words which are in daily use by modern