the most sounding in the language. It is a labyrinth of sweet sounds,
"in many a winding bout of linked sweetness long drawn out"--that
would cloy by their very sweetness, but that the ear is constantly
relieved and enchanted by their continued variety of modulation--
dwelling on the pauses of the action, or flowing on in a fuller tide of
harmony with the movement of the sentiment. It has not the bold dramatic
transitions of Shakspeare's blank verse, nor the high-raised tone of
Milton's; but it is the perfection of melting harmony, dissolving the
soul in pleasure, or holding it captive in the chains of suspense.
Spenser was the poet of our waking dreams; and he has invented not only
a language, but a music of his own for them. The undulations are
infinite, like those of the waves of the sea: but the effect is still
the same, lulling the senses into a deep oblivion of the jarring noises
of the world, from which we have no wish to be ever recalled.




LECTURE III.
ON SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON.


In looking back to the great works of genius in former times, we are
sometimes disposed to wonder at the little progress which has since been
made in poetry, and in the arts of imitation in general. But this is
perhaps a foolish wonder. Nothing can be more contrary to the fact, than
the supposition that in what we understand by the _fine arts_, as
painting, and poetry, relative perfection is only the result of repeated
efforts in successive periods, and that what has been once well done,
constantly leads to something better. What is mechanical, reducible to