He ceased; and then gan all the quire of birds
        Their divers notes to attune unto his lay,
      As in approvance of his pleasing wordes. 
        The constant pair heard all that he did say,
      Yet swerved not, but kept their forward way
        Through many covert groves and thickets close,
      In which they creeping did at last display [3]
        That wanton lady with her lover loose,
      Whose sleepy head she in her lap did soft dispose.

      Upon a bed of roses she was laid
        As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin;
      And was arrayed or rather disarrayed,
        All in a veil of silk and silver thin,
      That hid no whit her alabaster skin,
        But rather shewed more white, if more might be: 
      More subtle web Arachne cannot spin;
        Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see
      Of scorched dew, do not in the air more lightly flee.

      Her snowy breast was bare to greedy spoil
        Of hungry eyes which n’ ote therewith be fill’d,
      And yet through languor of her late sweet toil
        Few drops more clear than nectar forth distill’d,
      That like pure Orient perles adown it trill’d;
        And her fair eyes sweet smiling in delight
      Moisten’d their fiery beams, with which she thrill’d
        Frail hearts, yet quenched not; like starry light,
      Which sparkling on the silent waves does seem more bright.”

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[2] Taken from Tasso.
[3] This word is an instance of those unwarrantable freedoms which
Spenser sometimes took with language.
___

The finest things in Spenser are, the character of Una, in the first book; the House of Pride; the Cave of Mammon, and the Cave of Despair; the account of Memory, of whom it is said, among other things,

      “The wars he well remember’d of King Nine,
      Of old Assaracus and Inachus divine”;

the description of Belphoebe; the story of Florimel and the Witch’s son; the Gardens of Adonis, and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and Colin Clout’s vision, in the last book.  But some people will say that all this may be very fine, but that they cannot understand it on account of the allegory.  They are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it would bite them:  they look at it as a child looks at a painted dragon, and think it will strangle them in its shining folds.  This is very idle.  If they do not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them.  Without minding it at all, the whole is as plain as a pike-staff.  It might as well be pretended that we cannot see Poussin’s pictures for the allegory, as that the allegory prevents us from understanding Spenser.  For instance, when Britomart, seated amidst the young warriors, lets fall her hair and discovers her sex, is it necessary to know the part she plays in the allegory, to understand the beauty of the following stanza?