Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

His Canzonierie, or Collection of Lyric effusions, constituted his chief renown as a poet. The love he expresses is not the voluptuous passion of Ovid or Propertius, but that of the delicate-most respectful courtship, with which the civilization of the present day impresses an adoring woer. As addressed, indeed, to a married lady, and by a person bearing the clerical habit, though only in minor orders, it cannot be reckoned pure, however free from practical guilt. This homage to beauty still caused, it would appear, no scandal, and in place of censure, has excited, from its elegance of expression, unreserved applause. Yet, I have heard more than one deeply read Italian scholar own, that the sameness of the subject in his love sonnets, necessarily caused a wearisome feeling, an effect from which even Madame de Sévigné's letters would not be wholly exempt, were it not now and then seasonably relieved by some intervening and interesting narrative of a public or private occurrence.

I am in possession of the first Aldine edition of Petrarch's Sonnets, &c., printed, it is there recorded, from the poet's own autograph-" tolto con sommissima diligenza dallo scrito di mano medesima del poeta"-in Venegia nelle case d'Aldo Romano, nel anno M. D. I., (1501.) The volume is very rare, and is remarkable, as presenting the earliest specimen of an Italian book in the Italic type.

Of Petrarch's Latin works, his Epistles, divided into eight books, are the most interesting. The complete body of his compositions, Italian and Latin, was published, in a bulky folio, at Bâle in 1581, of which I bought a copy there in 1793.

I think it right here to rectify an error, as con

nected with poetry, in an article for August, 1840, page 151, where Racine's tragedy of Bajazet is supposed to refer to the imperial captive of Tamerlane, instead of the brother of the Ottoman Emperor, Amurath the Fourth, who was put to death by this Sultan, the hero of Knolles, or rather of Ricaut the continuator of Johnson's favorite historian, (See Rambler, No. 122,) in 1638. This drama, in which Mademoiselle Rachel excited lately such admiration in the character of Roxane, is founded on a mixed intrigue of love and ambition in the seraglio. But within a short interval, a rival tragedy, with a consonant title, "Tamerlan, ou Mort de Bajazet," based on the memorable encounter in 1402, of these mighty chiefs, alluded to in the quoted article of this Magazine, was exhibited. It was the composition of Pradon, that ignoble competitor for the theatrical laurel then fading on the brow of Corneille, whom a patrician junto, headed by the Duke de Nevers, (Mazarin's nephew)—and, literature may blush for the association-Mesdames de Sévigné and Deshouliers-opposed to the rising fame of Racine. Under their auspices, this Mævius of the great poet, who, when reproved by the Prince de Conti for localising the scene of action in Europe, which was in Asia, (Natolia) replied that, indeed, he was not much conversant with chronology! was not only urged to emulation, but deluded by an ephemeral preference. A triumph over such an adversary, Racine felt would be a humiliation

[blocks in formation]

Quod cum victus erit, mecum certasse feretur."

Ovid. Metam. xiii., 16.

And, in sensitive consciousness of this depreciation of
his value, he withdrew, in 1677, from a contest, which
had been irritatingly maintained against some of the
noblest creations of his genius. For twelve continu-
ous years, consequently, the Muse of this admirable
writer remained silent, as if eclipsed, until revived to
light and exertion by the inspirations of Holy Writ,
which, in 1689, produced Esther, and, in 1691,
Athalie, the most perfect, perhaps, of French dramas.
Boileau's tribute, to his accomplished friend, only
expresses the general conviction of his countrymen—
"Du théatre Français l'honneur et la merveille,
Il sut ressuciter Sophocle dans ses écrits;

Et dans l'art d' enchanter les cœurs et les esprits,
Surpasser Euripide, et balancer Corneille."

If, as we may feel, our neighbours' national partiality prevents their acknowledgment of Shakspere's supremacy in his art, we, possibly, may be arraigned of equally withholding the full measure of justice to which their dramatists are entitled. Yet, to refuse them a rank parallel with their models, Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, or Aristophanes, would be to betray a subjection to prejudice, which, recoiling on ourselves, would impeach our critical discernment, proclaim our disqualification as arbiters, and wholly invalidate our assertion for Shakspere of that precedence and elevation which we fondly claim for him. But placing HIм beyond all bounds of comparison, whom have we successfully to oppose to Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, and, above all, to Molière; though these writers were alike fettered in the chains of their unpliant language and artificial rules? Of the productions of this last-mentioned consummate master of

genuine comedy, several of the higher class are, with the exception of our great bard's, matchless by ours. Nor was he less fortunate in the minor department of the art, as his numerous farces prove; though it was by no means from choice that he descended to these compositions; but auditors of taste were comparatively few. His subjects necessarily confined him to the exposure and correction of the affected and ridiculous, which he assailed with wonderful, and generally well directed effect. Like Voltaire, though with widely different, and more legitimate appliance, "his talent breathed most on ridicule," while Shakspere could wield, with equal power, the pathetic, the humorous and ridiculous. His passage from the sublime to the ludicrous, was not less prompt than Napoleon was wont to describe it in the contrasted evolutions of human fate" Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas,"-swift in succession, said the deep observer, as the alterations of the atmosphere

“ Χ ̓ ᾧ Ζεὺς ἀλλοκα μὲν πέλει διθριος, άλλοκα δ' ύει.”

JOHNSON,

HIS CONTEMPORARIES AND BIOGRAPHERS.

1. The Men of Letters and Science who flourished in the Time of George III. By LORD BROUGHAM, &c. Dr. Johnson. Charles Knight and Co., London.

2. The Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson. By the Rev. J. RUSSELL. 8vo. Burns: London. 1847.

F.

"BOSWELL'S Life of Johnson," emphatically declares no inadequate judge, Mr. Macaulay, in reviewing the book, "is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakspere is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers. He has distanced all his competitors," &c. Such, too, is the general opinion, maintained from its origin in unimpaired favor now after the lapse of half-a-century. It truly is a work of pre-eminent excellence in its line, unsurpassed, or rather, as just stated, unrivalled. ...Nihil majus generatur ipso;

66

Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum."

Horat. Carm. Ode 12, lib.

For, surely, the meagre collections of anecdotes and pointed sayings, known under the designation of

« AnteriorContinuar »