Our ancestors
paid their compliments to sex or rank--ours are addressed to the person.
There is no flattery where there is no falsehood--no falsehood where
there is no deception. Loyalty of old was a passion, and passion has a
truth of its own--and as language does not always furnish expressions
exactly adapted, or native to the feeling, what can the loyal poet do,
but take the most precious portion of the currency, and impress it with
the mint-mark of his own devoted fancy? Perhaps there never was a more
panegyrical rhymer than Spenser, and yet, so fine and ethereal is his
incense, that the breath of morning is not more cool and salutary:--
"It falls me here to write of Chastity
That fayrest virtue, far above the rest.
For which what needs me fetch from Faery,
Forreine ensamples it to have exprest,
Sith it is shrined in my soveraine's brest,
And form'd so lively on each perfect part,
That to all ladies, who have it protest,
Needs but behold the pourtraict of her part,
If pourtray'd it might be by any living art;
But living art may not least part expresse,
Nor life-resembling pencil it can paint,
All it were Zeuxis or Praxiteles--
His daedale hand would faile and greatly faynt,
And her perfections with his error taynt;
Ne poet's wit that passeth painter farre--
In picturing the parts of beauty daynt," &c.
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