heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

26 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
they of no mean capacity, in subsequent ages thereto, who have thought
it
out, have come to a different conclusion.
Spenser lived in Elizabethan times, after the age of chivalry had
closed, but his Fairie Queene is an endeavour to stimulate the same high
sentiments, by reviving the imagery of the past. With what reverence
does he draw the portrait of the ancient knight
:
"A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine,
Ycladd in mighty arms and silver shielde,
\Yherein old dints of deep wounds did remaine,
And cruell marks of many a bloudy fielde.
And on his breast a bloudie cross he bore,
The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead, as living ever, Him adored.
Upon his shielde the like was also scored,
For sovereign hope which in His helpe he had.
Right faithful, true, he was in deede and worde ;
But of his cheere did seem too solemn sad,
Yet nothing did he dred, but ever was y drad."
B. I, C. 2, St. 2.
Dryden fully appreciated it,
and would fain have attempted to revive
by his pen the chivalrous sentiments of old ;
but (as he says in his
letters to the Earl of Dorset) being " encouraged only with fair words by
"Charles II., my little salary ill paid, and no prospect of a future sub-
" sistence, I was then discouraged at the beginning of my attempt ; and
"now age has overtaken me, and want, a more insufferable evil, through
"the change of the times has wholly disabled me."
Walter Scott alludes to this in his introduction to Marmion, where
he apologises for venturing to
" Essay to break a feeble lance
In the fair fields of old romance."
And it is feeble (however graphic and poetic), for he seldom rises above
the mere romance. He says, however,
"The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorned not such legends to prolong:
They gleam in Spenser's elfin dream,
And muse in Milton's heavenly theme ;
And Dryden in immortal strain
Had raised the Table Round again,
But that a ribald king and court
Bade him toil on to make them sport:
Demanded for their niggard pay,
Fit
for their souls, a looser lay,
Licentious satire, song and play.
The world, defrauded of the high design,
Profaned the God-given strength and marred the lofty line."