of diction. For the proof of this assertion, we need not wander from our own country as it exists in our own times; for, affluent as it is in writers of poetic fancy, it has not produced one who has shown himself equal to the construction of a poetic fable. Now the Æneis must be admitted to be a grand structure, in the formation of which this presiding faculty of mind has been exerted with the most unquestionable success. Every part of the magnificent edifice has been so disposed by the hand of the consummate architect as to fall into one great plan, and perfectly to combine the charm of variety with the impression of unity. Of this praise it is impossible to deprive the Æneis; and with this, associated with his supreme mastery of poetic diction, it will not be easy to dispossess its author of that high rank among the sons of the Muse to which he has been elevated by the unanimous suffrage of so many successive generations.' Passing the sound and ingenious reasoning in general defence of Virgil's poetic invention, which follows this passage, we advert to another and minor branch of the subject: 'That few only of the similes of Virgil are original, and that he may perpetually be tracked in the epic and dramatic poets of Greece, are facts which his admirers may be as little desirous of concealing, as he seems himself to have been ambitious of displaying. With opinions, on the subject of original composition, different from those of some of the poets of the present age, he conceived that by a masterly use of the material he made it substantially his own; and that, by adapting it to the embellishment of his work, he lost no more of his credit as a poet or an inventor, than an architect would of his, as a designer, by adjusting a marble from an ancient temple to a place in his dome or colonnade.'-Having evinced himself, in short, by the construction of his poem to be a poet, as the term is defined by the illustrious critic of Greece, he might very justly imagine that he was only exhibiting other and subordinate powers of his mind, when he was thus fashioning, and improving for his purposes, what he had solicited from the affluence of the Grecian Muse.' Very reluctantly, we are compelled to omit the Doctor's scientific and powerful defence of rhime, and his accompanying character of blank verse: but for some observations on subjects connected with the general powers and properties of English verse, we must find a place. 'The modern schools of Cowper and Darwin, as their systems tend to two opposite extremes, are both evidently tainted with error; the disciples of the former degrading verse into prose in their eagerness to avoid tumour, or shocking us with discord as they pursue the charm of variety; whilst those of the latter satiate our ears with a dull and stagnant monotony, under the pretence of gratifying them with perpetual and unmitigated harmony. By the just award of the public taste, the Darwinian school is now happily no more, and may consequently be dismissed from our our notice but some of the corrupt tenets of that of Cowper, under the false names of simplicity and varied diction, have still those who espouse them; and their influence on our composition may yet slightly be traced. In the short and weak preface to his Homer, Mr. Cowper speaks contemptuously of poetic composition, "bedizened" with metaphor; and, in defence of his broken and discordant numbers, he asserts that they were the subjects of his choice, to relieve the ear from a palling sameness of cadence. But surely metaphor is pre-eminently, if not peculiarly, the property of poetry; and that which constitutes the living principle of its language. The diction of the classic Muse is almost uniformly figurative; and throughout the productions of Virgil it will be difficult to discover ten lines in continuity of which some are not ornamented or made picturesque with metaphor. The same may be affirmed of the lyric compositions of Horace; and, simple as on many occasions may be the diction of the Grecian bards, it will be found to be generally metaphoric. Metaphoric, indeed, it 'must be in proportion as it is poetic; and metaphor, as we may confidently assert, has no necessary connexion whatever with tumour or meretricious embellishment. For the support of what we advance, passages without number might be adduced from the poets of Greece and Rome, of Italy and England: but the obviousness of its truth makes citations, for its confirmation, unnecessary; and if we are desirous of seeing what is poetry (if poetry it may be called) when unbedizened with metaphor, we have only to open Mr. Cowper's Ilias, and we shall immediately be satisfied, As to the other tenet, maintained by this ingenious man and his followers, of introducing discords for the production of variety, it stands equally refuted by all the great classic examples, and by the very nature of the thing itself. Our ear, indeed, solicits variety in verse; but it can be only within the precincts of verse that it solicits it. If it ask for what is beyond these limits, it asks for an incongruity, and seeks for pleasure from something monstrous, a thing unacknowledged either as verse or as prose. In the compositions of Homer and of Virgil, the variety of cadence is nearly infinite, and the ear is relieved and delighted by the still shifting position of the pause. The line is sometimes quickened and sometimes impeded; now roughened with aspirates and consonants, and now smooth and flowing with liquids and vowels. But, under every change and mode of adaptation to the poet's purpose, the line is still an hexameter; constructed upon certain principles, and invariably constituted of a due proportion of spondees and dactyls.' We must be contented with one other citation on this point, so interesting to every mind that is imbued with even the slightest classical taste and knowlege: 'My readers will probably think that I trifle with them, when I thus affect to communicate knowlege of which they are already possessed. But, in refuting this dangerous and weak doctrine of the Cowperian school, it was necessary for me to consider the II general general structure of an English heroic verse, that we might ascertain the bounds within which a variety of cadence can allowably be sought. If a line be deprived of its metre, we affirm that an unlicenced liberty has been taken; and that the result is, not pleasure from the variety, but, pain from the discord and resentment in consequence of the transgression. In the pages of Mr. Cowper, and of his pupils, occur numberless instances of these no-verses, which we are commanded to admire as the produce of refined taste, and as justified by the authority of Milton and of some of our other great masters of song. That Milton, with his exquisitely fine ear for poetic harmony, has produced many of these maimed lines, is a fact beyond dispute: but that they were deliberately produced with the sanction of his cool judgment, is a question much more open to debate. His perfect rhythm possesses all the variety that can be required by the ear; and, without any classic authority for the transgression, it is not easily conceivable that he would violate his metre for an object which he 'could rightfully obtain. Far more probable is it, that these defective lines fell from him in the carelessness of rapid composition; and were subsequently withdrawn from his revision by that calamity which prevented him from reading his own page. In any event, no example, however great, can sanction what is destructive of the very thing for which the offence is committed.' The close and critical examination of the rythm of Milton, which follows these original and acute observations, may be studied with advantage by any poet; and the dignified but truly modest manner in which the author says all that is necessary, and nothing farther, of his own work, may afford a lesson of still more salutary effect. We doubt not that the account of the translations of Virgil, previous to that of Dryden, is as correct as it is ample; and, to gratify the bibliographical taste of some of our readers, we transcribe it from Dr. Symmons's preface: To speak of the translations of my author, antecedent to that by Dryden, can be gratifying only to curiosity: for, in their present sepulchral rest on the shelves of the literary virtuoso, they are consulted only for the purposes of antiquarian research. Without noticing the prose version by Caxton, the printer, of which I know nothing but the name, I refer to the translations of the Eneis by Gawen Douglas, the Earl of Surrey, Phaer and Twyne, Stanyhurst, Sir T. Wroth, Sandys, Waller, and Sydney Godolphin, and May: for those by Vicars, Ogleby, Sir T. Howard, Fanshaw, and the Earl of Lauderdale, may be regarded as of the age of Dryden; though all of them preceded his work, and some by the intervention of several years. * Among these more ancient *To these elder translators of Virgil, I must add, on the repectable authority of Mr. Malone, the names of Fleming, Boys, and Harrington, with whose productions I am wholly unacquainted.' versions versions of my author, that by Gawen Douglas, the learned and accomplished Bishop of Dunkeld, is eminently distinguished by its poetic merit.' To these partial or entire translators of the immortal Mantuan, are to be added the blank version of Dr. N. Brady, the versifier of the Psalms also; and that of Mr. Hawkins, Oxford Professor of Poetry. Of Trapp's blank in this great lottery, Dr. S. speaks very kindly; influenced by the acknowleged learning of the said Dr. Trapp. Of Pitt he does not express himself in so respectful a manner; nor is there any thing in that feeble writer to require it. To Dryden he bows with due feeling; and it is this very reverence for his great predecessor, in his rarer and happier moments, that has enabled Dr. S. to excel him in the general tone and character of his translation. We now turn to the notes; and here we really grieve to see the utter impossibility of executing our intention with regard to them. We can only generally state that they comprise a great mass of sound knowlege, in a very small comparative compass; that they abound with critical acumen; and that we very seldom find any reason to differ, materially, from their decisions. When, however, the Doctor says that the expression of "animam ultricis flamma" (in the second Eneid) is hard, we do not understand him; we have always read and construed thus;-juvabit explêsse animum ultricis flamme," it will be a gratification to fill my mind with the fires of revenge," in other words, "to satisfy my vengeance." When, also, he proposes to supply the well-known chasm in the third book, "Quem tibi jam Trojá as follows, incensâ Deus obtulit orbum, we think that he is unhappy in his suggestion, because neither in sound nor in sense do we consider the phrase to be Virgilian. Pereunte Creusa reliquit, or fumante Creusa reliquit, may, perhaps, be something better: but we are far from fancying it to be successful. Moreover, we cannot approve the insertion of a long, uninteresting, and dull version (as it seems to us) of a rambling story, in Ovid's Fasti, about the fate of Anna, Dido's sister, in the notes to the fourth book. "Anna soror, soror Anna," "Sister Anne, sister Anne," might as well have been omitted. A note on Bonaparte occurs at page 642. which will greatly offend some of our Ultra-royalists and Extra-legiti mates: mates: but, with a little abatement, we hold it to be equally just and magnanimous. 6 Dr. Symmons maintains that the figure of the river Mincius, and not the river itself, is intended by the lines "velatus arundine glaucá Mincius," &c., and says that the poet would have talked of the placidness of the waters, or the verdure of the banks,' had he meant the river itself: but we cannot discover the force of this argument; and we conceive that the Doctor must have forgotten the mode in which Virgil mentions this beloved river on two other occasions: "Hic viridis tenerâ prætexit arundine ripas Mincius." Ecl. vii. 12. A note at page 625., on the irreconcileable difference of philosophical abstractions and poetical images, is well worthy of the attention of that second race of metaphysical poets, -that sect of mental surgeons, dissectors of the passions, who have appeared among us in these last and evil days of our poetic taste. We regret, indeed, that we cannot quote either this passage or the candid and judicious criticisms on the faults of the tenth book of the original. Among the multitude of readers, in the present day, is a serious class, of which the component individuals may think that too much time and thought have been bestowed on the niceties of language and versification both by Dr. Symmons and ourselves. To such persons, for whose good feeling we have the highest regard, we would recommend a little deeper examination of the powers and properties of the human mind; requesting them to remember how closely connected are the principles of moral purity and the seeds of intellectual excellence; and what a wonderful association exists between our habits of judging and our habits of feeling. To these common topics, applicable to all ages and countries, and illustrated by the history of every nation, (whose growth in real greatness has been always proportionate to its improvement in true taste, and whose decline and fall have ever been preceded by a deterioration of the public judgment in works of learning,) we would have the persons in question add one other inquiry: "What is the state of the more popular part of English literature at present?" If that state be such as we blush and tremble to consider it, grateful indeed should his countrymen be to such a writer as Dr. Symmons, who has recalled us to purer models, who has stood in the gap," and has endeavoured at least" to stay the plague." ART. |