words; and yet so skilfully is this managed, that it never strikes any
unwarned ear as artificial, or other than the result of the necessary
movement of the verse.

3. Spenser displays great skill in harmonizing his descriptions of
external nature and actual incidents with the allegorical character and
epic activity of the poem. Take these two beautiful passages as
illustrations of what I mean:--


By this the northerne wagoner had set
His sevenfol teme behind the stedfast starre
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre;
And chearefull chaunticlere with his note shrill
Had warned once, that Phoebus' fiery carre
In hast was climbing up the easterne hill,
Full envious that Night so long his roome did fill;

_When_ those accursed messengers of hell,
That feigning dreame, and that faire-forged spright
Came, &c.

B. I. c. 2. st. 1.

...

At last, the golden orientall gate
Of greatest Heaven gan to open fayre;