the garland from Apollo; marke what I saye, and yet I
will not say that I thought; but there is an end for
this once, and fare you well, till God or some good
Aungell putte you in a better minde.'
Clearly the _Faerie Queene_ was but little to
Harvey's taste. It was too alien from the cherished
exemplars of his heart. Happily Spenser was true to
himself, and went on with his darling work in spite of
the strictures of pedantry. This is not the only
instance in which the dubious character of Harvey's
influence is noticeable. The letters, from one of
which the above doom is quoted, enlighten us also as to
a grand scheme entertained at this time for forcing the
English tongue to conform to the metrical rules of the
classical languages. Already in a certain circle rime
was discredited as being, to use Milton's words nearly
a century afterwards, 'no necessary adjunct or true
ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works
especially, but the invention of a barbarous age to set
off wretched matter and lame metre.' A similar attempt
was made in the course of the sixteenth century in
other parts of Europe, and with the same final issue.
Gabriel Harvey was an active leader in this deluded
movement. When Sidney too, and Dyer, another poet of
the time, proclaimed a 'general surceasing and silence
of bald rhymes, and also of the very best too, instead
whereof they have by authority of their whole senate,
prescribed certain laws and rules of quantity of
English syllables for English verse, having had already
thereof great practice,' Spenser was drawn 'to their