THE FAERIE QUEEN.* THIS edition, numbering three hundred copies, and
not to be reprinted, is worthy of the great poem which it reproduces. The volumes are royal quarto, containing in all a thousand and thirty-eight pages, with sixteen of introductory matter, the text being that of the edition of 1596, while the fragment of Book VII. (Canto vii. containing fifty-nine stanzas, and two stanzas of Canto viii.) is given from the folio of 1609. We have also the original title-page of the 1E96 edition, " printed for William Ponsonbie," the dedication to the " Most High, Mightie and Magnificent Empresse, Renowned for all Pietie, Venue, and all Gratious Government Elizabeth by Grace of God Queen of England, Fraunce & Verginia." After the Third Book comes the "Letter of the Author expounding his whole intention in the course of this worke," addressed to the "Right noble and Valorous Sir Walter Raleigh," various testimonies in verse, and Spenser's own dedicating sonnets. It is no disparagement to this noble poem to say that it is greatly advantaged by a sumptuous form. No one can deny that to read it with anything like a thorough study is laborious, and that the weakness of human nature turns discouraged from the small print and other unlovely accessories of the cheap reprint. Here we have everything of the best : clear and shapely type, ample margins, and admirable paper, dead white, without glaze, and thick. The form, in short, is such as seems to lend itself to leisure, and without leisure no one can hope to read The Faerie Queen to any purpose. Any sort of criticism would be ridiculous ; but does any one want to be told where Spenser may be found at his best P Let him read the Cave of Mammon (Book II., Canto vii.) It is followed by one of the loci classici which every one knows : " And is there love in heaven ? "
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