Having by these extracts endeavoured to put our readers in possession of some of the finest parts of this poem, and also of those passages which determine its moral complexion, we shall proceed to offer a few remarks upon its character and pretensions in both points of view. The poem is in the stanza of Spenser--a stanza of which we think it difficult to say whether the excellencies or defects are the greatest. The paramount advantage is the variety of tone and pause of which it admits. The great disadvantages are, the constraint of such complicated rhymes, and the long suspension of the sense, especially in the latter half of the stanza. The noblest conception and most brilliant diction must be sacrificed, if four words in one place, and three in another cannot be found rhyming to each other. And as to the suspension of the sense, we are persuaded that no man reads a single stanza without feeling a sort of strain upon the intellect and lungs--a kind of suffocation of mind and body, before he can either discover the lingering meaning, or pronounce the nine lines. To us, we confess that the rhyming couplets of Mr. Scott, sometimes deviating into alternate rhymes, are, on both accounts, infinitely preferable. One of the ends of poetry is to relax, and the artificial and elaborate stanza of Spenser costs us too much trouble, even in the reading, to accomplish this end. To effect this, the sense should come to us, instead of our going far and wide in quest of the sense. In our conception also, the heroic line of ten syllables, though favourable to the most dignified order of poetry, appears to limp when forced into the service of sonneteers: and poems in the metre before us, are, after all, little better than a string of sonnets; of which it is the constituent principle to be rather pretty than grand--rather tender than martial--rather conceited than wise--to keep the sense suspended for eight lines, and to discharge it with a point in the ninth. These observations are by no means designed to apply especially to the author--the extreme gravity of whose general manner and matter, in a measure covet the dignity of the heroic line. But it is this discordancy of measure and subject, together with the obviously laboured rhymes and the halting of the sense, which in general, we think, have shut out the Spenserian school from popular reading, and have caused a distinguished critic[J] to say, that the "Faiery Queen will not often be read through;" and that, although it maintains its place upon the shelf, it is seldom found on the table of the modern library.