Remorse, Act iv. sc. 3.


Indeed Spenser himself, in the conduct of his great poem, may be
represented under the same image, his symbolizing purpose being his
mariner's compass:--


As pilot well expert in perilous wave,
That to a stedfast starre his course hath bent,
When foggy mistes or cloudy tempests have
The faithfull light of that faire lampe yblent,
And coverd Heaven with hideous dreriment;
Upon his card and compas firmes his eye,
The maysters of his long experiment,
And to them does the steddy helme apply,
Bidding his winged vessell fairely forward fly.

B. II. c. 7. st. 1.

So the poet through the realms of allegory.

5. You should note the quintessential character of Christian chivalry in
all his characters, but more especially in his women. The Greeks,
except, perhaps, in Homer, seem to have had no way of making their women
interesting, but by unsexing them, as in the instances of the tragic
Medea, Electra, &c. Contrast such characters with Spenser's Una, who
exhibits no prominent feature, has no particularization, but produces
the same feeling that a statue does, when contemplated at a distance:--