And yet that quaint stateliness is not without its attractions. We have indeed to fit ourselves for it. But when we have submitted to its demands on our imagination, it carries us along as much as the fictions of the stage. The splendours of the artificial are not the splendours of the natural; yet the artificial has its splendours, which impress and captivate and repay. The grandeur of Spenser's poem is a grandeur like that of a great spectacle, a great array of the forces of a nation, a great series of military effects, a great ceremonial assemblage of all that is highest and most eminent in a country, a coronation, a royal marriage, a triumph, a funeral. So, though Spenser's knights and ladies do what no men ever could do, and speak what no man ever spoke, the procession rolls forward with a pomp which never forgets itself, and with an inexhaustible succession of circumstance, fantasy, and incident. Nor is it always solemn and high-pitched. Its gravity is relieved from time to time with the ridiculous figure or character, the ludicrous incident, the jests and antics of the buffoon. It has been said that Spenser never smiles. He not only smiles, with amusement or sly irony; he wrote what he must have laughed at as he wrote, and meant us to laugh at. He did not describe with a grave face the terrors and misadventures of the boaster Braggadochio and his Squire, whether or not a caricature of the Duke of Alençon and his "gentleman," the "petit singe," Simier. He did not write with a grave face the Irish row about the false Florimel (IV. 5),--
Then unto Satyran she was adjudged, Who was right glad to gaine so goodly meed: But Blandamour thereat full greatly grudged, And litle prays'd his labours evill speed, That for to winne the saddle lost the steed. Ne lesse thereat did Paridell complaine, And thought t'appeale from that which was decreed To single combat with Sir Satyrane: Thereto him Atè stird, new discord to maintaine.
And eke, with these, full many other Knights She through her wicked working did incense Her to demaund and chalenge as their rights, Deserved for their perils recompense. Amongst the rest, with boastfull vaine pretense, Stept Braggadochio forth, and as his thrall Her claym'd, by him in battell wonne long sens: Whereto her selfe he did to witnesse call: Who, being askt, accordingly confessed all.