...


And Mulla mine, whose waves I whilom taught to weep.

Ib.



And there is a beautiful passage of the same sort in the Colin Clout's
'Come Home Again':--


"One day," quoth he, "I sat, as was my trade, Under the foot of Mole,"
&c.


Lastly, the great and prevailing character of Spenser's mind is fancy
under the conditions of imagination, as an ever present but not always
active power. He has an imaginative fancy, but he has not imagination,
in kind or degree, as Shakspeare and Milton have; the boldest effort of
his powers in this way is the character of Talus.[2] Add to this a
feminine tenderness and almost maidenly purity of feeling, and above
all, a deep moral earnestness which produces a believing sympathy and
acquiescence in the reader, and you have a tolerably adequate view of
Spenser's intellectual being.

[Footnote 1: 'Psychomachia'. Ed.]