Charlemaine, at St. Jean piè de Port, heard it, and said to his barons, "What means that sound of my bold nephew's horn? Marsilio has deceiv'd me much, I dread, Thy thoughts I ween befit a younker's head.' The traitor next tells Charles that Orlando is only hunting on the plain; and, in the mean time, Orlando orders Terigi to speed to Charlemaine with the news of the disastrous fight of Roncesvalles. It does not seem that the bursting of his heart occasioned instant death, since he blows a third time with all his remaining strength ;— then beside his page He fell upon his knees, spent, broken-hearted, Gan is At the third blast, all is confusion at St. Jean. accused of treachery, is struck by Ogier, Gerard, Namus, and others, and cast into a dungeon; while the emperor makes instant preparations to cross the Pyrennees, and, by a miracle, the mountains are removed and the rough places made plain that he may arrive with greater speed. On the road, Charles meets Terigi; and, to shew how well little circumstances are introduced to add to the general effect, we may mention that the squire, in the stupefaction of his suffering, and in the anxiety to make its cause known, forgot to kneel to the emperor. We can only give one stanza of his affecting relation of the disaster. "Dead is Orlando, flower of chivalry; Dead is Astolfo, his brave cousin dear; With Oliver and Sansonet they lie : And Angiolino, strong of arm whilere : With noble Walter of the Lion-Mount." Charlemaine thus imprecates the most dreadful curses upon Ganelon. "Curst be the father in his lonely tomb And curst no less the wretched mother's womb Thy league detested with the Pagan might, Have slain my hope, all Christendom's sweet flow'r, Terigi leads him to the body of Orlando, over which the emperor weeps bitterly; and, striking his breast and face, exclaims, addressing the corse; "Is this the promise that you made to me You promis'd, with a look that spoke your thought, Into my hand it should be then restor❜d." Here a new wonder is shewn; for the dead body of Orlando, being filled by the Santo Spirito, rises from the earth. "To Charles, Orlando with his sword in hand The holy spirit that had fill'd it fled, And down it dropp'd a shapeless heap, and dead." This part of the story, we apprehend, differs from most of the other romances, some stating that Orlando failing to break his sword flung it into a river, while others relate that he succeeded in destroying it, not by striking it upon the rock, but by inserting it in a crevice and then dragging it transversely.We like the invention of Zinabi much better, nor was it inconsistent with the superstition of his time. Charles takes ample vengeance on the Moors, compelling Marsilio to throw himself from a lofty tower, and returns to Paris with the dead bodies of the Paladins, which are laid in the church of Nostra Donna di Parigi. We need not dwell upon the exemplary punishment of Ganelon, who is torn to pieces by four wild horses, after his wife has in vain interceded, and his nephew fought for him. Alda not being in Paris the emperor sends for her, and, when informed of the fate of her husband and her brother, she hastens in an agony of grief to Nôtre Dame, where, as we have said, their corses are deposited. "She groan'd, and tears ran down her pallid cheek While she besought th' eternal Majesty, That she might hear once more Orlando speak, Then to console the kneeling lady meek, This miracle God wrought most wond'rously, Should comfort her, and she his voice should hear. 'Sweet sister! (said he) we are now at rest Amid the glory of our Saviour dear.' After thanks to his auditors, the poem concludes with the following stanza :— "Lordings, for you this rhiming tale is told: Entreats high God him in his care to hold, And aye preserve him from his wrath divine ; Now to your honour here I end my story." If we had space, we should, probably, think it needless to add any thing to the running criticism with which we have accompanied our quotations. ART. VII.-Hudibras. The Second Part. London, Printed in the year 1663. Butler's Ghost; or Hudibras, the Fourth Part, with Reflections upon these Times. London, 1682. Hogan-Moganides: or the Dutch Hudibras. London, 1674. The Irish Hudibras, or Fingallian Prince, taken from the Sixth Book of Virgil's Eneids, and adapted to the present times. London, 1689. The Whigg's Supplication. A mock Poem, in two parts. By Sam. Colvil. Edinburgh, 1695. Pendragon; or the Carpet Knight, his Kalendar. London, 1698. In Imitation of Hudibras. The Dissenting Hypocrite, or Occasional Conformist; with Reflections on Two of the Ringleaders, &c. London, 1704. Vulgus Britannicus: or the British Hudibras. In fifteen Cantos. Containing the Secret History of the late London Mob, their rise, progress, and suppression by the Guards. Intermixed with the Civil Wars betwixt High-Church and Low-Church, down to this time: being a Continuation of the late ingenious Mr. Butler's Hudibras. Written by the Author of the London Spy. Second Edition. London, 1710. Hudibras Redivivus: or a Burlesque Poem on the Times. In twenty-four Parts. With an Apology and some other Improvements throughout the whole. The fourth Edition. By E. Ward, Gent. London. N. D. The Republican Procession; or the Tumultuous Cavalcade. A Merry Poem. The Second Impression, with additional Characters. 1714. The Hudibrastic Brewer: or, a preposterous Union between Malt and Meter. A Satyr upon the supposed Author of the Republican Procession. London, 1714. Four Hudibrastic Cantos, being-Poems on Four the greatest Heroes-That liv'd in any age since Nero's-Don Juan Howlet, Hudibras-Dickoba-nes and Bonniface. London, 1715. Posthumous Works in Prose and Verse of Mr. Samuel Butler, in three Volumes. The sixth Edition. London, 1720. England's Reformation, (from the Time of K. Henry VIII. to the end of Oates's Plot.) A Poem in four Cantos. By Thomas Ward. London, 1747. The Irish Hudibras, Hesperi-neso-graphia: or, a description of the Western Isle. In eight Cantos, with Annotations. By William Moffett, School-Master. London, 1755. The Poetical Works of the ingenious and learned William Meston, A. M. Edinburgh, 1767. It is the curse of original and successful writers to be dogged at the heels by a crowd of servile imitators, who copy and exaggerate their defects, caricature their peculiarities of thought and style, and force their own base metal into circulation by stamping it with the counterfeit impress of genius.* A work at once so novel and so powerful as Hudibras; so calculated to attract the admiration of the multitude by its oddity, of the courtier by its wit, and of the scholar by its sense and learning; falling in with the politics of the prevailing party, and extolled and quoted by the reigning sovereign; could hardly escape the martyrdom of imitation. It has naturally given rise to a number of plagiarisms and mimickries of its style, plan, and title, of various but all of infinitely inferior merit. These publications, though individually of little worth and interest, acquire some importance from their number and diversity, and a brief review of them, with some specimens of their styles, may not be altogether unprofitable and uninteresting. It required, however, no ordinary exertion of patience and perseverance to toil through the dreary pages of dull scurrility and studied obscenity, which have assumed and degraded the title of Hudibrastic Poems, and we have often paused in dismay and weariness, doubting whether the scanty gleanings of these barren flats would repay us for the labour of our cheerless researches. It is not our intention to advert to such works as the Scarronides, the Maronides, the Homer-à-la-Mode, &c. which have little in common with the poem of Butler, but the coarseness and the doggrel metre; but to confine ourselves to the more direct and avowed imitations of the style and plan of Hudibras. "An imitator (says Butler, in his admirable Characters,) is a counterfeit stone, and the larger and fairer he appears the more apt he is to be discovered, whilst small ones, that pretend to no great value, pass unsuspected. He has a kind of monkey and baboon wit, that takes after some man's way, whom he endeavours to imitate, but does it worse than those things that are naturally his own; for he does not learn, but takes his pattern out, as a girl does her sampler. He is but a retainer to wit, and a follower of his master, whose badge he wears every where, and therefore his way is called servile imitation. His muse is not inspired, but infected with another man's fancy; and he catches his wit, like the itch, of somebody else that had it before, and when he writes he does but scratch himself. He binds himself prentice to a trade which he has no stock to set up with, if he should serve out his time, and live to be made free." Remains, vol. 2. |