As the Beautiful is seen in Nature, and as the most beautiful object in nature is a beautiful woman, many of the older poets have, we say, professed to have seen in woman that beauty and perfection which they conceived in the spirit, and have honored it with a devotion which they felt was due to what Spenser calls the FIRST FAIR, which expresses an invisible sentiment or "idea" having no distinct or complete type in any one visible thing in the universe, and which, indeed, the poets themselves treat as irrepresentable by mere imagery; for the eye never sees it, nor does the ear hear it.

Many of the hermetic poets have given us intimations of the true object of their poetic worship; but mostly in the form of poems addressed to some lady, in which, without doubt, there has been in many instances a real, visible object, though seen under the "heightening influence of the ideal.” Hence the pertinacity with which writers insist upon the reality of a Beatrice, a Laura, a Fiammetta, &c., though they are staggered when they fall in with the "Lovely Boy" of Shakespeare's Sonnets, and waste a world of labor in efforts to show what particular historical person may answer to the said boy; when the very absurdity, not to say monstros

ity, immediately apparent from a literal interpretation, ought to suggest a rule, well understood by St. Augustine and others, that when any one encounters what is visibly absurd or monstrous in a writing, the writing is either worthless, or should be interpreted from some other than a literal ground.

With regard to Spenser, a reasonable critic may consider the question as having been settled by and for himself in his Hymns, where it is certain he enforces, in the strongest terms, his faith in the reality of the unseen Beauty, the Lady of his Sonnets, and the Cynthia of Colin Clouts. We pass over much argument on the subject, and recite from the Hymns:

"How vainly then do idle wits invent

That Beauty is nought else but mixture made

Of colors fair, and goodly temp'rament,
Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade
And pass away, like to a summer's shade;
Or that it is but comely composition

Of parts well measured, with meet disposition!

*

But ah! believe me, there is more than so,
That works such wonders in the minds of men.

For that same goodly hue of white and red,
With which the cheeks are sprinkled, shall decay,
And those sweet rosy leaves, so fairly spread
Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away
To that they were, even to corrupted clay.

But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray
That light proceeds which kindleth lovers' fire,
Shall never be extinguished nor decay;

But, when the vital spirits do expire,

Unto her native planet shall retire;

For it is heavenly-born, and cannot die,
Being a parcel of the purest sky."

This opinion is expressed in several ways in the Amoretti: it is intimated in the first Sonnet, 10th line, where the poet assigns Helicon as the birthplace of his Lady; it is referred to in the 15th Sonnet, line 13, as being what "few behold; " it is stated in Sonnet 55, line 10, in direct terms, &c.

The point left for debate as to Spenser's theory (which, like that of Sidney and many others, is Platonic), is as to the initial or suggesting condition under which the heavenly love takes its origin; and here there may be a doubt, if not settled by the 78th Sonnet, as to whether it must be beauty in a woman,

or may be the Beautiful in some other object, or in some scene in nature, the evening or morning star, the rising or setting sun, or possibly a simple flower, as Wordsworth saw it in a "primrose." Whatever may be the suggesting cause, the IDEA itself is supposed to transcend time and the visible, and stands before the poet's mind a living reality:

"For lovers' eyes [says the poet] more sharply sighted be
Than other men's, and in dear love's delight
See more than any other eyes can see,
Through mutual receipt of beams bright,
Which carry privie message to the spright,
And to their eyes that inmost fair display,
As plain as light discovers dawning day.

In which how many wonders do they read
To their conceipt, that others never see!

Then, Io triumph! O great Beauty's Queen,
Advance the banner of thy conquest high,

That all this world, the which thy vassals been,

May draw to thee, and with due fealty

Adore the power of thy great majesty,

Singing this hymn in honor of thy name,

Compiled by me, which thy poor liegeman am." 1

1 See Colin Clouts, line 640, &c.

In the use of the expression lover's eyes, we may inquire whether the poet means the eyes of two human lovers, male and female, or refers to lovers in the poetic sense, meaning those who are capable of receiving the sentiment (or idea) from anything in nature, not because of the dogma that God is, and may be seen, in all things, for this dogma itself rests on the fact that some men do thus see God (His Spirit or Beauty) in all things.

The point appears to be, that Spenser, and others of his class, see something as the Beautiful, which they figure as a lady; and then seek its smiles and favor in language somewhat assimilated to ordinary courtship, while the object itself is conceived to be invisible and eternal-characteristics of what is universally admitted to be divine.

Hermetic poets have labored under extreme difficulties in their efforts to avoid startling their readers by direct statements which, being liable to be misunderstood, are exposed to come into conflict with some tenet of traditional faith. Thus, what between the difficulty of the subject and a well-intentioned respect for what are felt, nevertheless, to be prejudices of education, the oldest and purest faith in the