Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

If there be one who has not,

nearly every poet has been guilty. I suspect it is he whom you say you are going to read, I mean Dante. I have only read part of Dante, and admire him very much. I think the brilliant passages are thicker set in his works, than in those of almost any other poet, but the want of connexion and interest makes him heavy; and, besides, the dif ficulty of his language, which I do not think much of, the obscurity of that part of history to which he refers, is much against him. His allusions, in which he deals not a little, are, in consequence, most of them lost.

I agree in liking Armida, but cannot help thinking Rinaldo's detention in his gardens very inferior to Ruggiero's.

Or fino agli occhi ben nuota nel golfo

Delle delizie e delle cose belle,

may seem to some an expression rather too familiar, and nearly foolish; but it is much better for describing the sort of situation in which the two heroes are supposed to be, than the Romito Amante of Tasso; not to mention the garden of Armida being all on the inside of the palace, and walled round by it, instead of the beautiful country described by Ariosto. Do you not think, too, that Spenser has much improved upon Tasso, by giving the song in praise of pleasure to a nymph rather than to a parrot? Pray, if you want any information about Greek poets or others, that I can give you, do not spare me, for it is a great delight to me to be employed upon such subjects, with one who has a true relish for them.

1 do not wonder at your passionate admiration of the Iliad, and agree with you as to the peculiar beauty of most of the parts you mention. The interview of Priam and Achilles is, I think, the finest of all. I rather think, that in Andromache's first lamentation, she dwells too much upon her child, and too little upon Hector, but may be I am wrong By your referring to the 4th book only for Agamemnon's brotherly kindness, I should almost suspect that you had not sufficiently noticed the extreme delicacy and kindness with which he speaks of him in the 10th v. 120, &c.

We have not at all fixed our time for going to Paris yet, Mrs. F. desires to be most kindly remembered to you.

I am very truly,

My dear sir, your's ever,

C. J. FOX.

P.S. I do not know which is the best translation of Don Quixote; I have only read Jarvis's, which I think very indifferent. I like Feijoo very much when I read him, but I have not his works.

1

MY DEAR SIR,

Pray do not think you trouble me, but quite the contrary, by writing to me, and especially on the subject of your poetical studies. What I do not like in your letter is, your account of yourself; and I am afraid a winter in Dublin, which may be so useful to you in other respects, may not be quite so well for your health; which, after all, is the grand article. Mrs. F. has not written lately, because you had not told her how to direct; and as she had not heard of your receiving the last letter she directed to Glasnevin, she feared that might not do. She desires me to say every thing that is kind to you.

I am very glad you prefer Euripides to Sophocles, because it is my taste; though I am not sure that it is not thought a heresy. He (Eur.) appears to me to have much more of facility and nature in his way of writing, than the other. The speech you mention of Electra is, indeed, beautiful; but when you have read some more of Euripides, perhaps you will not think it quite unrivalled. Of all Sophocles's plays, I like Electra clearly the best, and I think your epithet to Oed. Tyrs. a very just one, it is really to me a disagreeable play; and yet there are many who not only prefer it to Electra, but reckon it the finest specimen of the Greek theatre. I like his other two plays upon the Theban story both better, i. e. the Oed. Col. and the Antigone. In the latter there is a passage in her answer to Cicero that is, perhaps, the sublimest in the world; and, in many parts of the play there is a spirit almost miraculous, if, as it is said, Sophocles, was past eighty when he composed it. Cicero has made great

use of the passage I allude to, in his oration for Milo. I suppose you selected Hipp. and Iph. in Aulis, on account of Racine; and I hope you have observed with what extreme judgment he has imitated them. In the character of Hipp. only, I think he has fallen short of his original. The scene of Phædra's discovery of her love to her nurse, he has imitated pretty closely; and if he has not surpassed it, it is only because that was impossible. His Clytemnestra, too, is excellent, but would have been better if he had ventured to bring on the young Orestes as Eur. does. The change which you mention in the Greek Iphigenia, I like extremely; but it is censured by Aristotle as a change of character, not, I think, justly. Perhaps, the sudden change in Menelaus, which he also censures, is less defensible. Now, though the two plays of Eur. which you have read, are undoubtedly among his best, I will venture to assure you, that there are four others you will like full as well; Medea, Phænissæ, Heraclidæ, and Alcestis; with the last of which, if I know any thing of your taste, you will be enchanted. Many faults are found with it, but those faults lead to the greatest beauties. For instance, if Hercules's levity is a little improper in a tragedy, his shame afterwards, and the immediate consequence of that shame being a more than human exertion, afford the finest picture of an heroic mind that exists. The speech beginning ❤ rodλ¤ Tλæræ xagdia, &c. is divine. Besides the two you have, and the four I have recommended, Hercules Furens, Iph. in Tauris, Hecuba, Bacchæ, and Troacles, are all very excellent. Then came Ion, Supplices, Electra and Helen; Orestes and Andromache are, in my judgment, the worst. I have not mentioned Rhesus and Cyclops, because the former is not thought to be really Euripides's and the latter is entirely comic, or rather a very coarse farce; excellent, however, in its way, and the conception of the characters not unlike that of Shakspeare in Caliban. I should never finish, if I were to let myself go upon Euripides. In two very material points, however, he is certainly far excelled by Sophocles: 1st, in the introduction of proper subjects in the songs of the chorus; and, 2dly, in the management of his plot. The extreme absurdity of the chorus, in Medea suffering her to kill her children, and of that in Phædra let

ting her hang herself, without the least attempt to prevent it, has been often and justly ridiculed; but what signify faults, where there are such excessive beauties? Pray write soon, and let me know, if you have read more of these plays, what you think of them.

If you do not go to Dublin before my brother returns, you had better commission somebody to call at the Royal Hospital, for some books of which Mrs. H. Fox took the charge for you, but which, as she writes, she does not know where to send. I think my brother's return a very bad symptom of the intentions of government with regard to poor Ireland; but that is a subject as fruitful, though not so pleasant, as that of Euripides.

St. Anne's Hill, Friday.

Your's, ever most truly,

C. J. FOX.

P. S. When you have read the two farewell speeches of Medea and Alcestis to their children, I do not think you will say that Electra's is quite unrivalled, though most excellent undoubtedly it is.

MY DEAR SIR,

It gives Mrs. F. and me great pleasure to hear that you think you are getting better, and that, too, in spite of the weather, which if it has been with you as with us, has been by no means favourable to such a complaint as your's. The sooner you can come the better; and I cannot help hoping that this air will do you good. Parts of the 1st, and still more of the 2nd book of the Eneid, are capital indeed; the description of the night sack of a town, being a subject not touched by Homer, hinders it from having that appearance of too close imitation which Virgil's other battles have; and the details, Priam's death, Helen's appearance, Hector's in the dream, and many others, are enchanting. The proëm, too, to Eneas's narration is perfection itself. The part about Sinon and Laocoon does not so much please me, though I have nothing to say against it. Perhaps it is too long, but whatever be the cause, I feel it to be rather cold. As to your friend's heresy, I cannot much wonder

[blocks in formation]

at, or blame it, since I used to be of the same opinion myself; but I am now a convert; and my chief reason is, that, though the detached parts of the Eneid appear to me to be equal to any thing, the story and characters appear more faulty every time I read it. My chief objection (I mean that to the character of Eneas) is, of course, not so much felt in the three first books; but, afterwards, he is always either insipid or odious, sometimes excites interest against him, and never for him.

The events of the war, too, are not striking; and Pallas and Lausus, who most interest you, are in effect exactly alike. But, in parts, I admire Virgil more and more every day, such as those I have alluded to in the 2nd book; the finding of Andromache in the third, every thing relating to Dido; the 6th book; the visit to Evander, in the 8th; Nisus and Euryalus, Mezentius's death, and many others. In point of passion I think Dido equal, if not superior, to any thing in Homer, or Shakspeare, or Euripides; for me, that is saying every thing.

One thing which delights me in the Iliad and Odyssey, and of which there is nothing in Virgil, is the picture of manners, which seem to be so truly delineated. The times in which Homer lived undoubtedly gave him a great advantage in this respect; since, from his nearness to the times of which he writes, what we always see to be invention in Virgil, appears like the plain truth in Homer. Upon this principle, a friend of mine observed, that the characters in Shakspeare's historical plays always appear more real than those of his others. But exclusive of this advantage, Homer certainly attends to character more than his imitator. I hope your friend, with all his partiality, will not maintain that the simile in the first Eneid, comparing Dido to Diana, is equal to that in the Odyssey, comparing Narcissa to her, either in propriety of application, or in beauty of description. If there is an Appollonius Rhodius where you are, pray look at Medea's speech, lib. iv. v. 365, and you will perceive, that even in Dido's finest speech, nec tibi diva parens, c. he has imitated a good deal, and especially those expressive and sudden turns, neque te teneo, &c. but then he has made wonderful improvements, and, on the whole, it is, perhaps, the finest thing in all poetry.

« AnteriorContinuar »