Rev. Phineas Fletcher

No allegorical poem, either previous or succeeding, has approached the Faerie Queen within half the diameter of the earth. The Purple Island of Fletcher is a performance of infinite pains and ingenuity — but a wearisome desert of labyrinths, which, luckily, we traverse clew in hand. The Pilgrim's Progress is a wonderful work — but till all distinctions of ranks have been first confused and then destroyed, John Bunyan must stand far aloof from Edmund Spenser — though he too has his place among the hierarchies.