Milton, three-quarters of a century later, turned over in his mind the plan of an English epic on the wars of Arthur, and when he left it was only to forsake the singing of English origins for the more ultimate theme of the origins of mankind.

Spenser designed to celebrate the character, the qualities and the training of the English gentleman.

And because poetry, unlike philosophy, cannot deal with abstractions but must be vivid and concrete, he was forced to embody his virtues and foes to virtue and to use the way of allegory.

His outward plan, with its knights and dragons and desperate adventures, he procured from Ariosto.

As for the use of allegory, it was one of the discoveries of the Middle Ages which the Renaissance condescended to retain.