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lxii INTRODUCTION.
use old forms, ' as whilom was the antique worldes guize ' To suit the
play of his melody or rhyme he could vary his forms, using dreriment', or
drerihed', or ' dreariness',' jollihed' or jolhtee '. Or he would create a
form of his own, such as the adjective ' daint', or the verb to ' cherry '
Yet these idiosyncrasies of his vocabulary, open as they are to serious attack
as both arbitrary and illogical, are all grafted on to a firm and healthy
stock of pure and simple English, free from the involved and pedantic
mannerisms that were the snare of his age Hence it is that though he
was the first conscious inventor of a distinct poetic diction, which drew
from ' well-languaged' Daniel a criticism of his ' aged accents and untimely
words ', and from Ben Jonson the charge that in affecting the
ancients he writ no language', Coleridge could assert with a still more
vital truth that there was ' no poet whose writings would safe her stand
the test of Mr Wordsworth's theory than Spenser '.
The individual quality of Spenserian melody found perfect expression
in the verse form of the Faerie Queene This stanza was his own invention,
and it is his greatest contribution to the development of English prosody
Chaucer's rhyme royal (a b a b b c c) may have called his attention to the
effectiveness of a stanza with an uneven number of lines, and indeed,
the effects attainable in these two measures might well be said to represent
the difference between the metrical genius of Chaucer and of Spenser
He has been supposed to owe something to the ottava rima (a b a b a b c c),
though the interlacing of his rhymes brings his measure nearer to the
stanza that he had borrowed from Chaucer for the opening of his April
and November Eclogues 1 (ababbcbc) But to admit this detracts in no
way from the absolute originality of the Spenserian stanza The_added
ninth line is a magnificent conclusion to the linked sweetness of the preceding
eight, and in it the music of the whole stanza spfeads and settles
Ufa triumphant or a quiet close Its logical value to the metrical scheme
lies in the fact that, standing apart from the rest by reason of its length,
it forms a distinct climax, and is in a manner detached, yet, because it is
linked in rhyme with the foregoing quatrain, it never suffers the sharp
isolation that occasionally marks the final couplet of the ottava rima or
the rhyme royal It is obviously fitted for sententious and reflective
comment upon the situation
I'll weares he armes, that mil them vse for Ladies sake (IIIv II )
It is admirable for rounding off an episode, or concluding a canto It is
often the most beautiful line of a stanza, which gathers strength as it
proceeds, giving the last splendid touch to a vivid description
Loe where the dreadfull Death behind thy backe doth stond, (II vIII 37 )
1 In the November Eclogue also may be noticed his first consistent use of the
Alexandrine, and it may well be that in his composition of that poem the Spenserian
stanza occurred to him