The Hope of Giotto is represented as winged, rising in the
air, while an angel holds a crown before her. I do not know if Spenser
was the first to introduce our marine virtue, leaning on an anchor, a
symbol as inaccurate as it is vulgar: for, in the first place, anchors
are not for men, but for ships; and in the second, anchorage is the
characteristic not of Hope, but of Faith. Faith is dependent, but Hope is
aspirant. Spenser, however, introduces Hope twice,--the first time as the
Virtue with the anchor; but afterwards fallacious Hope, far more
beautifully, in the Masque of Cupid:
"She always smyld, and in her hand did hold
An holy-water sprinckle, dipt in deowe."
SECTION LXV. TENTH CAPITAL. _First side_. Luxury (the opposite of
chastity, as above explained). A woman with a jewelled chain across her
forehead, smiling as she looks into a mirror, exposing her breast by
drawing down her dress with one hand. Inscribed "LUXURIA SUM IMENSA."
These subordinate forms of vice are not met with so frequently in art as
those of the opposite virtues, but in Spenser we find them all. His
Luxury rides upon a goat:
"In a greene gowne he clothed was full faire,
Which underneath did hide his filthinesse,
And in his hand a burning heart he bare.
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