Mote ftead you much your purpose to subdew.” And now faire Phoebus gan decline in hafte Which choofing for that evenings hofpitale, They thether marcht: but when they came in fight, And from their sweaty courfers did avale, They found the gates faft barred long ere night, And every loup faft lockt, as fearing foes de X. 5. fpight. tiolum. CHURCH. hofpitale,] Inn. Lat. hofpi X. 7. from their fweaty courfers] Sir Guyon's horse was stolen, and he does not fay how he got another. Their muft include Sir Guyon, as well as Prince Arthur and his Squire. There are some few, in this poem, of these kind of inaccuracies, if paffing over little circumstances may be fo called. And perhaps the mentioning them may appear as trifling, as the inaccuracies themfelves. UPTON. Ibid. avale,] Come down, difmount. Fr. avaller. See the note on avayles, Shep. Cal. Feb. TODD. XI. Which when they faw, they weened fowle reproch Was to them doen, their entraunce to forftall; Till that the Squire gan nigher to approch, And wind his horne under the Caftle wall, That with the noise it shooke as it would fall. Eftfoones forth looked from the highest spire The Watch, and lowd unto the Knights did call, To weete what they fo rudely did require: Who gently anfwered, They entraunce did defire. XII. "Fly fly, good Knights," faid he, "fly fast away, ye If that your lives ye love, as meete fhould; Fly faft, and fave yourselves from neare decay; XI. 4. And wind his horne] See F. Q. i. viii. 3, where the bugle horn breaks the enchantment at a fingle blast. Concerning other uses, to which the bugle horn was applied, I refer the reader to Mr. Walker's Hiftorical Memoirs of the Irish Bards, 4to. Dubl. 1786, pp. 85, 86; but I will not omit his judicious obfervations on what concerns the application of it in the prefent fenfe. "Sometimes we difcover it, in the Gothic romances, hanging over the entrance of castles, on the blowing of which by an hafty courier, or a wandering knight, the porter appears at the battlements, and inquires, whence the stranger -his errand-and the nature of the bufinefs.-May we not suppose, that the bugle horn was fometimes fufpended over the entrances of those stately castles which are now nodding to their fall" in many parts of this kingdom (i. e. Ireland)? For the fictions of romantick chivalry have, for their basis, the real manners of the feudal times; and fuch times undoubtedly there were in Ireland. TODD. 66 Here may ye not have entraunce, though we would: We would and would againe, if that we could; But thousand enemies about us rave, And with long fiege us in this Castle hould: Seven yeares this wize they us befieged have, And many good Knights flaine that have us fought to fave." XIII, Thus as he spoke, loe! with outragious cry 7 XII. 8. Seven yeares this wize they us befieged have,] See the first stanza, where the poet opens the allegory: Nor has the reader any occafion to be put in mind, that this Castle is the human body, and Alma the mind; and that this mifcreated troop of befiegers are vain conceits, idle imaginations, foul defires, &c. Compare Orl. Fur. C. vi. 59. Or rather Plato De Repub. Lib. viii, where he mentions the perturbed affections feizing on the citadel of the youthful foul, ñs Tuxñs åxpóπodiv, Alma's caftle, or ftrong hold. Spenfer fays "feven years," perhaps, in allufion to the Seven ages of the world. 1ft age, From Adam to Noah. 2d, To Abraham. 3d, From Abraham to the departure of Ifrael out of Egypt. 4th, To the building of the temple. 5th, To the captivity of Babylon. 6th, To the birth of our Saviour. 7th, From the birth of our Saviour to the end of the world. Or perhaps the number Seven has a particular reference to the various ftages of man's life. Confult Cenforinus De Die Nat. cap. vii, and cap, xiv. And Jikewife Macrob. In Somn. Scip. i. vi. UPTON. Some with unweldy clubs, fome with long speares, Some rufty knives, fome ftaves in fier warmd: Sterne was their looke; like wild amazed fleares, Staring with hollow eies, and ftiffe upstanding heares. XIII. 6. Some with unweldy clubs, fome with long Speares, Some rufty knives, &c.] Statius, Theb. iv. 64. "Pars gefa manu, pars robora flammis "Indurata diu." See alfo Q. Curtius, iii. 2. Virgil, Æn. vii. 523. Arrian, Indic. c. 24. JORTIN, XIII. 7. Some rufty knives,] So, in F. Q. i. iv. 35.) "Bitter Defpight with Rancours ruftie knife." Again, F. Q. ii. iv. 44. "When Rancour rife "Kindles revenge, and threats his ruftie knife.” Again, of a wound, F. Q. i. ix. 36. "In which a ruftie knife faft fixed stood." The steeds of Night are described champing" their rustie bits,” F. Q. i. v. 20. The word ruftie feems to have conveyed the idea of fomewhat very loathfome and horrible to our author. In Virgil's Gnat, he applies it to Horror, ft. 56. I will hence take occafion to correct a paffage in Chaucer, in his character of the Reve, Prolog. ver. 620. "And by his fide he bare a rustie blade:” I do not perceive the confiftency of the Reve's wearing a rustie fword; I should rather be inclined to think that the poet wrote "truftie blade." But this alteration will perhaps be disapproved by thofe who recollect, that Chaucer, in another paffage, has attributed the epithet rusty to the sword of Mars, Teft. of Creff. 188. "And in his hand he had a rusty fword." T. WARTON, Ibid. fome ftaves in fier warmd.] Staves, "ambuftas fine cufpide," as Silius Italicus expreffes it, L. vi. 550. Bufbequius, in his account of the Colchians, fays, their common foldiers had no other arms but arrowes or stakes burnt at one end, or great wooden clubs. UPTON. XIV. Fierfly at first thofe Knights they did affayle, Unhable their encounter to fuftaine; Like scattered fheepe, whenas the shepherds A lion and a tigre doth efpye With greedy pace forth rufhing from the foreft nye. XV. A while they fled, but foone retournd againe With greater fury then before was found; And evermore their cruell Capitaine XV. 3. Capitaine] So all the editions, except Spenfer's own; which read Captaine, a blunder of the prefs. CHURCH. Mr. Upton, however, preferves and defends the original reading, contending that Captaine here confifts of three fyllables, which is in Spenfer's manner, as heroës, fafety, &c. He adds that Shakspeare has ferjeant and captain of three fyllables in Macbeth, A. i. S. ii. "The newest state. This is the ferjëant—” "Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo? Yes." Thefe officers, I muft confefs, appear to me to be very unfairly preffed into the fervice of the critick! In paffages like thefe, the violation of precife conformity to metre may be eafily pardoned, and requires not the aid of elaborate rectifi cation. However, capitaine might certainly be fairly extended for the fake of the rhythm, and be pronounced, as in French, capitaine; because it appears to have been ufed as a word of three fyllables, even in profe. See A Lamentation, in which |