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So oft as I with ftate of present time
The image of the antique world compare,
Whenas mans age was in his freshest prime,
And the first bloffome of faire vertue bare;
Such oddes I finde twixt those, and these
which are,

As that, through long continuance of his courfe,

Me feemes the world is runne quite out of fquare

From the first point of his appointed fourse; And being once amiffe growes daily wourse and wourfe :

II.

For from the golden age, that first was named, It's now at earft become a ftonie one;

II. 2.

at cart] That is, at length. So the quarto and first folio read. So Chaucer, edit. Urr. p. 104. "And then at erft amongis 'hem thei faye."

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And men themselves, the which at first were

framed

Of earthly mould, and form'd of flesh and bone,

Are now transformed into hardest stone; Such as behind their backs (fo backward bred)

Were throwne by Pyrrha and Deucalione: And if then thofe may any worse be red, They into that ere long will be degendered.

III.

Let none then blame me, if, in difcipline
Of vertue and of civill ufes lore,

I do not forme them to the common line
Of prefent dayes which are corrupted fore;

The fecond and third folios, Hughes, and the edition of 1751, read " as earft." CHURCH.

Mr. Upton and Tonfon's edition in 1758 have also admitted the genuine reading" at earft." Mr. Upton, however, interprets at earft AS FORMERLY, and refers to F. Q. vi. iii. 39. "Full loth am I, quoth he, as now at earst :" That is, as See alfo Tyrwhitt's Gloff. Chaucer, in Vas formerly. Chaucer, in V. Erft, where At erft is interpreted At first, &c.

TODD. degendered.] This is

II. 9. Speufer's own word, which Mr. Upton thus illuftrates: "From gender cones gendered: So from degender DEGENDERED, degeneratus." The fecond and third folios, however, and Hughes, and Church, read degenered. And Mr. Mafon, the author of a Supplement to Dr. Johnfon's Dictionary, has cited this paffage to show that Spenfer introduced the word degenered into our language. But Mr. Mafon did not attend either to the original edition or to the first folio. The fuppofed emendation degenered is in conformity to the French participle degeneré.

TODD.

But to the antique ufe which was of yore,
When good was onely for itselfe defyred,
And all men fought their owne, and none no

more;

When Iuftice was not for moft meed out

hyred,

But fimple Truth did rayne, and was of all

admyred.

IV.

For that which all men then did Vertue call, Is now cald Vice; and that which Vice was hight,

Is now hight Vertue, and fo us'd of all:
Right now is Wrong, and Wrong that was is
Right;

As all things elfe in time are chaunged quight:
Ne wonder; for the heavens revolution

Is wandred farre from where it first was pight, And fo doe make contrárie conftitution Of all this lower world toward his diffolution.

V.

For whofo lift into the heavens looke,

And fearch the courfes of the rowling fpheares, Shall find that from the point where they first tooke 1

IV. 6.

the heavens revolution

Is wandred farre from where it firft was pight,] This is owing to the preceffion of the Equinoxes. See Keil, Aftron. Lect. viii. UPTON.

Their fetting forth, in thefe few thoufand

yeares

They all are wandred much; that plaine ap

peares :

For that fame golden fleecy ram, which bore Phrixus and Helle from their stepdames feares,

Hath now forgot where he was plast of yore, And shouldred hath the bull which fayre Europa bore:

VI.

And eke the bull hath with his bow-bent horne So hardly butted those two twinnes of love, That they have crusht the crab, and quite him borne

Into the great Nemæan lions

grove. So now all range, and doe at randon rove Out of their proper places farre away, And all this world with them amiffe doe

move,

And all his creatures from their course aftray; Till they arrive at their last ruinous decay.

VII.

Ne is that fame great glorious lampe of light,
That doth enlumine all these leffer fyres,
In better case, ne keepes his course more
right,

But is mifcaried with the other spheres:

For fince the terme of fourteen hundred

yeres,

That learned Ptolomae his hight did take, He is declyned from that marke of theirs Nigh thirtie minutes to the foutherne lake; That makes me feare in time he will us quite forfake.

VIII.

And if to thofe Ægyptian wifards old (Which in ftar-read were wont have beft infight)

Faith may

be given, it is by them told
That fince the time they first tooke the
funnes hight,

Foure times his place he shifted hath in sight,
And twice hath rifen where he now doth west,
And wefted twice where he ought rise aright.
But moft is Mars amiffe of all the reft;

VII. 6. That learned Ptolomae,] Claudius Ptolomæus, a celebrated aftronomer that taught at Alexandria in Ægypt. Spenfer alludes to his book called Almugeftum magnum.

UPTON.

VIII. 1. And if to thofe Egyptian wifards &c.] He refers to a well known tale told in Herodotus, viz. that, according to the Egyptian wifards, the fun had in the space of 11340 years (which space they pretended to have accounts of) four times altered his regular course, having been twice obferved to rife where he now fets, and twice to set where he now rifes. UPTON.

VIII. 6.

Chaucer, p. 415. edit. Urr.

where he now doth weft,] Set. So

"Till that the hote fonne began to wefte." CHURCH.

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