vençal had this Turn; and from these it was that Petrarch took the Idea of his Poetry. We have his Trionfi in this kind; and Boccace pursu'd in the same Track. Soon after Chaucer introduc'd it here, whose Romaunt of the Rose, Court of Love, Flower and the Leaf, House of Fame, and some others of his Writings are Master-pieces of this sort. In Epick Poetry, 'tis true, too nice and exact a Pursuit of the Allegory is justly esteem'd a Fault; and Chaucer had the Discernment to avoid it in his Knight's Tale, which was an Attempt towards an Epick Poem. Ariosto, with less judgment, gave intirely into it in his Orlando; which tho' carry'd to an Excess, had yet so much Reputation in Italy, that Tasso (who reduc'd Heroick Poetry to the juster Standard of the Ancients) was forc'd to prefix to his Work a scrupulous Explanation of the Allegory of it, to which the Fable it-self could scarce have directed his Readers. Our Country|man Spencer follow'd, whose Poem is almost intirely allegorical, and imitates the manner of Ariosto rather than that of Tasso. Upon the whole, one may observe this sort of Writing (however discontinu'd of late) was in all Times so far from being rejected by the best Poets, that some of them have rather err'd by insisting in it too closely, and carrying it too far: And that to infer from thence that the Allegory it self is vicious, is a presumptuous Contradiction to the Judgment and Practice of the greatest Genius's, both ancient and modern.
Pag.
