The purple island : a poem / by Phineas Fletcher ; with the critical remarks of the late Henry Headley, and a biographical sketch by William Jaques.

  • Fletcher, Phineas, 1582-1650.
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The purple island : a poem / by Phineas Fletcher ; with the critical remarks of the late Henry Headley, and a biographical sketch by William Jaques. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/222
    “ With him went Hope in rank, a handsome maid, “ Of cheerful look and lovely to behold; “ In silken samite she was light array’d, “ And her fair locks were woven up in gold: “ She always smil’d, and in her hand did hold “ An holy-water sprinkle, dipt in dew, “ With which she sprinkled favours manifold “ On whom she list, and did great liking show; * Great liking unto many, but true love to few. B. III. Cant. xii. St. 13. “ The figure is simple, and the attributes are new; Hope is here divested of her usual emblem, the anchor, (which Fletcher has preserved) and the water-sprinkle substi- tuted in its room, which gives a religious air to the image; had it but received the sanction of antiquity 'for its adoption, we might perhaps have heard more in its praise. On their coins, the ancients, we find, represented Hope in the character of a sprightly girl, looking for- ward and holding a blossom or bud in her right hand *, whilst with her left she holds up her garment, to prevent its retarding her pace. On a coin of Hadrian, I have seen Fortune and Hope with this emblem. Mr. Spence has justly objected against Spenser, that many of his allegorical personifications are inconsistent, complicated, and overdone; he observes, that when they are well- invented, they are not well-marked out, and instances amongst others the figure of Hope now before us. But surely though his general charge may be true, in this in- stance he has been misled by his classical taste, and too great a reverence for the ancients ; to expect an implicit adherence to them in all their mythological appendages is unreasonable and absurd, and at once puts a stop to every exertion of fancy and genius ; it is but doing justice to them to acknowledge that their emblematic figures are unrivalled ; but as their several distinct at- tributes are closely connected with, and indeed drawn from their religion, history, dress, and manners, they must be considered as relatively excellent only, we cannot be * We commonly say “ to destroy our hopes in th'c bud.