nec ponere lucum Artifices, nec rus saturum laudare. The orthodox poetical creed is more Catholic. The noblest earthly object of the contemplation of man is man himself. The universe, and all its fair and glorious forms, are indeed included in the wide empire of the imagination; but she has placed her home and her sanctuary amidst the inexhaustible varieties and the impenetrable mysteries of the mind.

sons of Homer and Milton are magni- | have been the favourite themes of our ficent digressions. It scarcely injures most eminent poets. The herd of bluetheir effect to detach them from the stocking ladies and sonneteering genwork. Those of Dante are very diffe- tlemen seem to consider a strong sensirent. They derive their beauty from bility to the "splendour of the grass, the context, and reflect beauty upon it. the glory of the flower," as an ingreHis embroidery cannot be taken out dient absolutely indispensable in the without spoiling the whole web. I can- formation of a poetical mind. They not dismiss this part of the subject treat with contempt all writers who are without advising every person who can unfortunately muster sufficient Italian to read the simile of the sheep, in the third canto of the Purgatorio. I think it the most perfect passage of the kind in the world, the most imaginative, the most picturesque, and the most sweetly expressed. No person can have attended to the Divine Comedy without observing how little impression the forms of the external world appear to have made on the mind of Dante. His temper and his situation had led him to fix his observation almost exclusively on human In tutte parti impera, e quivi regge; nature. The exquisite opening of Quivi è la sua cittade, e l'alto seggio.* the eighth canto of the Purgatorio affords a strong instance of this. Othello is perhaps the greatest work in He leaves to others the earth, the the world. From what does it derive ocean, and the sky. His business is its power? From the clouds? From with man. To other writers, evening the ocean? From the mountains? Or may be the season of dews and stars from love strong as death, and jealousy and radiant clouds. To Dante it is the cruel as the grave? What is it that hour of fond recollection and passionate we go forth to see in Hamlet? Is it devotion, the hour which melts the a reed shaken with the wind? A small heart of the mariner and kindles the love of the pilgrim,--the hour when the toll of the bell seems to mourn for another day which is gone and will

*

return no more.

The feeling of the present age has taken a direction diametrically opposite. The magnificence of the physical world, and its influence upon the human mind,

* I cannot help observing that Gray's imitation of that noble line

celandine? A bed of daffodils? Or is it to contemplate a mighty and way. ward mind laid bare before us to the inmost recesses? It may perhaps be doubted whether the lakes and the hills are better fitted for the education of a poet than the dusky streets of a huge capi

tal. Indeed who is not tired to death

with pure description of scenery? Is it not the fact, that external objects never strongly excite our feelings but when they are contemplated in refer

"Che paia 'l giorno pianger che si muore," is one of the most striking instances of inju-ence to man, as illustrating his destiny, dicious plagiarism with which I am acquainted. Dante did not put this strong

personification at the beginning of his decription. The imagination of the reader is so well prepared for it by the previous lines, that it appears perfectly natural and pathetic. Placed as Gray has placed it, neither preceded nor followed by any thing that harmonises with it, it becomes a frigid conceit. Woe to

the unskilful rider who ventures on the horses of Achilles !

οἱ δ ̓ ἀλεγεινοὶ ἀνδράσι γε θνητοῖσι δαμήμεναι ἠδ ̓ ὀχέεσθαι, ἄλλῳ γ' ή 'Αχιλῆϊ τὸν ἀθανάτη τέκε μήτηρ.

or as influencing his character? The most beautiful object in the world, it will be allowed, is a beautiful woman. But who that can analyse his feelings is not sensible that she owes her fascination less to grace of outline and delicacy of colour, than to a thousand associations which, often unperceived by ourselves, connect those qualities with the source

* Inferno, canto i.

of our existence, with the nourishment | have been imitators, and imitators at a of our infancy, with the passions of our disadvantage. Euripides and Catullus youth, with the hopes of our age-with believed in Bacchus and Cybele as little elegance, with vivacity, with tender- as we do. But they lived among men ness, with the strongest of natural who did. Their imaginations, if not instincts, with the dearest of social their opinions, took the colour of the ties? age. Hence the glorious inspiration of the Bacche and the Atys. Our minds are formed by circumstances: and I do not believe that it would be in the power of the greatest_modern poet to lash himself up to a degree of enthusiasm adequate to the production of such works.

To those who think thus, the insensibility of the Florentine poet to the beauties of nature will not appear an unpardonable deficiency. On mankind no writer, with the exception of Shakspeare, has looked with a more penetrating eye. I have said that his poetical character had derived a tinge from his peculiar temper. It is on the sterner and darker passions that he delights to dwell. All love, excepting the half-mystic passion which he still felt for his buried Beatrice, had palled on the fierce and restless exile. The sad story of Rimini is almost a single exception. I know not whether it has been remarked, that, in one point, misanthropy seems to have affected his mind as it did that of Swift. Nauseous and revolting images seem to have had a fascination for his mind; and he repeatedly places before his readers, with all the energy of his incomparable style, the most loathsome objects of the sewer and the dissecting

room.

There is another peculiarity in the poem of Dante, which, I think, deserves notice. Ancient mythology has hardly ever been successfully interwoven with modern poetry. One class of writers have introduced the fabulous deities merely as allegorical representatives of love, wine, or wisdom. This necessarily renders their works tame and cold. We may sometimes admire their ingenuity; but with what interest can we read of beings of whose personal existence the writer does not suffer us to entertain, for a moment, even a conventional belief? Even Spenser's allegory is scarcely tolerable, till we contrive to forget that Una signifies innocence, and consider her merely as an oppressed lady under the protection of a generous knight.

Those writers who have, more judiciously, attempted to preserve the personality of the classical divinities have failed from a different cause. They

Dante alone, among the poets of later times, has been, in this respect, neither an allegorist nor an imitator; and, consequently, he alone has introduced the ancient fictions with effect. His Minos, his Charon, his Pluto, are absolutely terrific. Nothing can be more beautiful or original than the use which he has made of the River of Lethe. He has never assigned to his mythological characters any functions inconsistent with the creed of the Catholic Church. He has related nothing concerning them which a good Christian of that age might not believe possible. On this account, there is nothing in these passages that appears puerile or pedantic. this singular use of classical names suggests to the mind a vague and awful idea of some mysterious revelation, anterior to all recorded history, of which the dispersed fragments might have been retained amidst the impostures and superstitions of later religions. Indeed the mythology of the Divine Comedy is of the elder and more colossal mould. It breathes the spirit of Homer and Eschylus, not of Ovid and Claudian.

On the contrary,

This is the more extraordinary, since Dante seems to have been utterly ignorant of the Greek language; and his favourite Latin models could only have served to mislead him. Indeed, it is impossible not to remark his admiration of writers far inferior to himself; and, in particular, his idolatry of Virgil, who, elegant and splendid as he is, has no pretensions to the depth and originality of mind which characterise his Tuscan worshipper. In truth, it may

be laid down as an almost universal with which this division of the work rule that good poets are bad critics. too much abounds. It may seem alTheir minds are under the tyranny of most absurd to quote particular speciten thousand associations imperceptible mens of an excellence which is diffused to others. The worst writer may easily over all his hundred cantos. I will, happen to touch a spring which is con- however, instance the third canto of nected in their minds with a long suc- the Inferno, and the sixth of the Purcession of beautiful images. They are gatorio, as passages incomparable in like the gigantic slaves of Aladdin, their kind. The merit of the latter is, gifted with matchless power, but bound perhaps, rather oratorical than poetiby spells so mighty that when a child cal; nor can I recollect anything in whom they could have crushed touched the great Athenian speeches which a talisman, of whose secret he was equals it in force of invective and bitignorant, they immediately became his terness of sarcasm. I have heard the vassals. It has more than once hap- most eloquent statesman of the age pened to me to see minds, graceful and remark that, next to Demosthenes, majestic as the Titania of Shakspeare, Dante is the writer who ought to be bewitched by the charms of an ass's most attentively studied by every man head, bestowing on it the fondest ca- who desires to attain oratorical emiresses, and crowning it with the sweet-nence. est flowers. I need only mention the poems attributed to Ossian. They are utterly worthless, except as an edifying instance of the success of a story without evidence, and of a book without merit. They are a chaos of words which present no image, of images which have no archetype:-they are without form and void; and darkness invented, is most unfit for such a work. is upon the face of them. Yet how many men of genius have panegyrised and imitated them!

But it is time to close this feeble and rambling critique. I cannot refrain, however, from saying a few words upon the translations of the Divine Comedy. Boyd's is as tedious and languid as the original is rapid and forcible. The strange measure which he has chosen, and, for aught I know,

Translations ought never to be written in a verse which requires much command of rhyme. The stanza becomes a bed of Procrustes; and the thoughts of the unfortunate author are alternately racked and curtailed to fit their new receptacle. The abrupt and yet consecutive style of Dante suffers more than that of any other poet by a version diffuse in style, and divided into paragraphs, for they deserve no other

The style of Dante is, if not his highest, perhaps his most peculiar excellence. I know nothing with which it can be compared. The noblest models of Greek composition must yield to it. His words are the fewest and the best which it is possible to use. The first expression in which he clothes his thoughts is always so ener-name, of equal length. getic and comprehensive that amplification would only injure the effect. There is probably no writer in any language who has presented so many strong pictures to the mind. Yet there is probably no writer equally concise. This perfection of style is the principal merit of the Paradiso, which, as I have already remarked, is by no means equal in other respects to the two preceding parts of the poem. The force and felicity of the diction, however, irresistibly attract the reader through the theological lectures and the sketches of ecclesiastical biography,

Nothing can be said in favour of Hayley's attempt, but that it is better than Boyd's. His mind was a toleraable specimen of filigree work,-rather elegant, and very feeble. All that can be said for his best works is that they are neat. All that can be said against his worst is that they are stupid. He might have translated Metastasio tolerably. But he was utterly unable to do justice to the

"rime e aspre e chiocce, "Come si converrebbe al tristo buco."*

I turn with pleasure from these *Inferno, canto xxxii.

It is not difficult to discover some of the causes to which this great man has owed a celebrity, which I cannot but think disproportioned to his real claims on the admiration of mankind. In the first place, he is an egotist. Egotism in conversation is universally abhorred. Lovers, and, I believe, lovers alone, pardon it in each other. No services, no talents, no powers of pleasing, render it endurable. Gratitude, admiration, interest, fear, scarcely prevent those who are condemned to listen to

wretched performances to Mr. Cary's retained possession,--an European retranslation. It is a work which well putation. deserves a separate discussion, and on which, if this article were not already too long, I could dwell with great pleasure. At present I will only say that there is no other version in the world, as far as I know, so faithful, yet that there is no other version which so fully proves that the translator is himself a man of poetical genius. Those who are ignorant of the Italian language should read it to become acquainted with the Divine Comedy. Those who are most intimate with Italian literature should read it for its it from indicating their disgust and original merits: and I believe that fatigue. The childless uncle, the they will find it difficult to determine powerful patron, can scarcely extort whether the author deserves most this compliance. We leave the inside praise for his intimacy with the language of Dante, or for his extraordinary mastery over his own.

CRITICISMS ON THE PRINCIPAL

ITALIAN WRITERS.

No. II. PETRARCH. (APRIL 1824.)

Et vos, o lauri, carpam, et te, proxima myrte,
Sic positæ quoniam suaves miscetis odores.

VIRGIL.

of the mail in a storm, and mount the box, rather than hear the history of our companion. The chaplain bites his lips in the presence of the archbishop. The midshipman yawns at the table of the First Lord. Yet, from whatever cause, this practice, the pest of conversation, gives to writing a zest which nothing else can impart. Rousseau made the boldest experiment of this kind; and it fully succeeded. In our own time Lord Byron, by a series of attempts of the same nature, made himself the object of general interest It would not be easy to name a writer and admiration. Wordsworth wrote whose celebrity, when both its extent with egotism more intense, but less and its duration are taken into the ac- obvious; and he has been rewarded count, can be considered as equal to with a sect of worshippers, comparathat of Petrarch. Four centuries and tively small in number, but far more a half have elapsed since his death. enthusiastic in their devotion. It is Yet still the inhabitants of every needless to multiply instances. Even nation throughout the western world now all the walks of literature are inare as familiar with his character and fested with mendicants for fame, who his adventures as with the most illus- attempt to excite our interest by exhitrious names, and the most recent biting all the distortions of their inanecdotes, of their own literary history. tellects, and stripping the covering This is indeed a rare distinction. His from all the putrid sores of their feelings. detractors must acknowledge that it Nor are there wanting many who push could not have been acquired by a their imitation of the beggars whom poet destitute of merit. His admirers they resemble a step further, and who will scarcely maintain that the unas-find it easier to extort a pittance from sisted merit of Petrarch could have the spectator, by simulating deformity raised him to that eminence which has and debility from which they are exnot yet been attained by Shakspeare, empt, than by such honest labour as Milton, or Dante,—that eminence, of their health and strength enable them which perhaps no modern writer, ex-to perform. In the meantime the cepting himself and Cervantes, has long credulous public pities and pampers a

The state of society in Rome was, in this point, far happier; and the Latin literature partook of the superiority. The Roman poets have decidedly surpassed those of Greece in the delineation of the passion of love. There is no subject which they have treated with so much success. Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, Horace, and Propertius, in spite of all their faults, must be allowed to rank high in this department of the art. To these I would add my favourite Plautus; who, though he took his plots from Greece, found, I suspect, the originals of his enchanting female characters at Rome.

nuisance which requires only the of honourable and chivalrous love treadmill and the whip. This art, were nowhere to be found united. The often successful when employed by matrons and their daughters, confined dunces, gives irresistible fascination to in the harem,-insipid, uneducated, works which possess intrinsic merit. ignorant of all but the mechanical arts, We are always desirous to know some- scarcely seen till they were married,— thing of the character and situation of could rarely excite interest; while those whose writings we have perused their brilliant rivals, half graces, half with pleasure. The passages in which harpies, elegant and informed, but Milton has alluded to his own cir- fickle and rapacious, could never incumstances are perhaps read more spire respect. frequently, and with more interest, than any other lines in his poems. It is amusing to observe with what labour critics have attempted to glean from the poems of Homer some hints as to his situation and feelings. According to one hypothesis, he intended to describe himself under the name of Demodocus. Others maintain that he was the identical Phemius whose life Ulysses spared. This propensity of the human mind explains, I think, in a great degree, the extensive popularity of a poet whose works are little else than the expression of his personal feelings. In the second place, Petrarch was not only an egotist, but an amatory Still many evils remained: and, in egotist. The hopes and fears, the joys the decline of the great empire, all that and sorrows, which he described, were was pernicious in its domestic instituderived from the passion which of all tions appeared more strongly. Under passions exerts the widest influence, the influence of governments at once and which of all passions borrows most dependent and tyrannical, which purfrom the imagination. He had also chased, by cringing to their enemies, another immense advantage. He was the power of trampling on their subthe first eminent amatory poet who ap-jects, the Romans sunk into the lowest peared after the great convulsion which state of effeminacy and debasement. had changed, not only the political, but Falsehood, cowardice, sloth, conscious the moral, state of the world. The and unrepining degradation, formed Greeks, who, in their public institu- the national character. Such a charactions and their literary tastes, were ter is totally incompatible with the diametrically opposed to the oriental stronger passions. Love, in particular, nations, bore a considerable resem- which, in the modern sense of the blance to those nations in their word, implies protection and devotion domestic habits. Like them, they de- on the one side, confidence on the spised the intellects and immured the other, respect and fidelity on both, persons of their women; and it was could not exist among the sluggish and among the least of the frightful evils heartless slaves who cringed around to which this pernicious system gave the thrones of Honorius and Augusbirth, that all the accomplishments of tulus. At this period the great renomind, and all the fascinations of man- vation commenced. The warriors of ner, which, in a highly-cultivated age, the north, destitute as they were of will generally be necessary to attach men to their female associates, were monopolised by the Phrynes and the Lamias. The indispensable ingredients

knowledge and humanity, brought with them, from their forests and marshes, those qualities without which humanity is a weakness and knowledge a curse,

D