"cut away nigh one quarter." And in the following instances, for the reason above assigned, we ought to interpret sheare [shere] to cut, or divide.

Which with their finny oars the swelling sea did sheare.

In Colin Clout it is literally used for divided.

→ Paradise Lost, b. vi. ver. 326.

First into manie partes his streame he shar❜d.

In the Ruins of Rome, for cut.

So soone as fates their vital thread had shorne.

And in Skelton.

In time of harvest men their corne shere*.

So in Gower.

And manie [herbs] with a knife she sherethț.

Hence share is used substantively, in the

same sense,

A large share it hew'd out of the rest.

1. 2. 18.

Hence too, shard, aliquid divisum, exsectum, as in potshard, Ps. ii. v. 9. and our author, 6. 1. 37. The fragments of earthen ware.

Pag. 121. ed. ut supr.

+ Confessio Amantis, lib. v. fol. 105. edit. Berthelette' 1554. fol.

Tile-shard is a common word in many parts of the kingdom. Shakespeare's shard-born beetle, means a beetle produced, or generated, among such fragments or broken pieces of refuse stuff; and is a fine stroke of that poet's accurate observation of nature.

SECT. X.

Of Spenser's Allegorical Character.

IN reading the works of a poet who lived in a remote age, it is necessary that we should look back upon the customs and manners which prevailed in that age. We should endeavour to place ourselves in the writer's situation and circumstances. Hence we shall become better enabled to discover how his turn of thinking, and manner of composing, were influenced by familiar appearances and established objects, which are utterly different from those with which we are at present surrounded. For want of this caution, too many readers view the knights

L

and damsels, the tournaments and enchantments, of Spenser, with modern eyes; never considering that the encounters of chivalry subsisted in our author's age; that romances were then most eagerly and universally studied; and that consequently Spenser, from the fashion of the times, was induced to undertake a recital of chivalrous achievements, and to become, in short, a romantic Poet.

Spenser, in this respect, copied real manners no less than Homer. A sensible historian observes, that "Homer copied true natural manners, which, however rough and uncultivated, will always form an agreeable and interesting picture: But the pencil of the English poet [Spenser] was employed in drawing the affectations, and conceits, and fopperies of chivalry *." This, however, was nothing more than an imitation of real

* Hume's Hist. of Engl. Tudor. vol. ii. 1759. p. 739.