ancients rivalled, sometimes excelled in the epic, the ode, or the pastoral; but in elegy they still remain without competitors, and the attempts of Biderman, Fontaine, Deshouliers, and Hammond, serve only to evince their inferiority. This may seem the more surprising, as there is scarcely a beauty in poetry, that elegy is not capable of admitting; sometimes replete with pathetic simplicity, sometimes even assuming the bold metaphors of resentment, and often borrowing every ornament that art can bestow: in a word, is tender, passionate, or graceful, by turns. Elegy may be distinguished into three different kinds, as either of them happens to prevail. It is Love, and not the poet, who speaks: like a true boy, he is easily enraged, and as easily appeased; now exulting with success, again melting into tears of disappointment; when angry, threatening impossibilities; when appeased, repenting his insolence with the most abject humility. But whatever the pretences of the moderns, or even of the Latins, may be to this beautiful species of poetry, the little poem before us bears away the prize, and is incontestibly the finest production of the elegiac Muse, if we except that of Euripides, in his Andromache. We shall not enter into a disquisition with the grammarians, whether it be an elegy or not, as it wants what they term the characteristic difference of this species of poesy; viz. an alternate succession of hexameters and pentameters be it sufficient to observe, that it unites every charm that a beautiful passion can suggest, and though simple, yet it is simplex munditiis. Some modern critics, it is true, have asserted, that plaintive elegy should be entirely unornamented: it might be sufficient to answer, that the practice of the ancients is against them; but nature itself also opposes this doctrine. A despairing lover, it is true, has no occasion to be tricked out like a beau, but yet should be sufficiently beautiful to interest the spectators with favourable sentiments, sufficiently ornamented to seem still desirous of pleasing. Elegy should in some measure resemble the poet's mistress. Purpureo jacuit semisupina toro Tamque fuit neglecta decens. "Stretched on this mountain thy torn lover lies ; There is no species of poetry that has not its particular character; and this diversity, which the ancients have so religiously observed, is founded in nature itself. The more just their imitations are found, the more perfectly are those characters distinguished. Thus the pastoral never quits his pipe, in order to sound the trumpet; nor does elegy venture to strike the lyre. It is indeed passionate, but has nothing terrible; nor is there, in the wildest rage of a lover, ought than can excite a stronger emotion than pity. "But streaming when he saw life's purple tide Stretch'd her fair arms, with trembling voice she cry'd; Yet stay, lov'd youth! a moment ere we part, O let me kiss thee!-hold thee to my heart! A little moment, dear Adonis! stay! And kiss thy Venus, ere those lips are clay. That last-left pledge shall sooth my tortur'd breast, When thou art gone." Let it not be thought that emotion alone will suffice for making an elegy, and that love will make a greater poet than study and genius. Passion alone will never produce a finished piece; it may, indeed, furnish the most natural sentiments, if we attend its impulses; but it is art alone that must turn them to use, and join the sion. "Wretch that I am! immortal and divine, graces In life imprison'd whom the fates confine, The smiles of joy, the golden hours, are fled; of expres As the philosopher asserted, that he learned the truest philosophy in Homer, so he who would write a perfect elegy, should study the performance before us with the closest application. From one example of this kind, he will learn more than from all the precepts critics have delivered on the subject. He will here perceive beauty in distress, borrowing the language of nature and passion, and adapting sentiments to the subject: the thoughts rising, as of their own accord, without being sought after; the verse flowing with various harmony; the whole combined by a concealed connection, yet seemingly without order: in short, our idea increasing, by just degrees, to the end of the piece; like those landscapes that rise upon the eye, till they seem to touch the skies. "Thus Venus griev'd-the Cupids round deplore, And mourn her beauty and her love no more. Now flowing tears in silent grief complain, Mix with the purple streams, and flood the plain. Stretch the stiff limbs, and close the glaring eye." It is not thus that many of our moderns have composed what they call elegies: they seem scarcely to know its real character. If a hero or a poet happens to die with us, the whole board of elegiac poets raise the dismal chorus, adorn his hearse with all the paltry escutcheons of flattery, rise into bombast, paint him as at the head of his thundering legions, or reining Pegasus in his most rapid career: they are sure to strew cypress enough upon the bier, dress up all the muses in mourning, and look themselves every whit as dismal and sorrowful as an undertaker's shop. Neither pomp nor flattery agrees with real affliction: it is not thus that Marcellus, even that Marcellus who was adopted by the emperor of the world, is bewailed by Propertius. His beauty, his strength, his milder virtues, seem to have caught the poet's affections, and inspired his affliction. Were a person to die in these days, though he was never at a battle in his life, our elegiac writers would be sure to make one for the occasion. Our lovers too, if they are really in love, seem more solicitous to shew their wit than their passion, adapt trifling ornaments to broad sentiments, and somewhat resemble the lawyer, who cared not whether he gained or lost his cause, provided he could make the court admire his eloquence. "Je hais ces vains auteurs, dont la muse forcée, S'érigent pour rimer en amoureux transit."-Boileau. With respect to the present translation, from the instances already given, the reader need scarcely be informed, that it is very elegant, and tolerably correct. Several of the minor poets are as yet without translations: we hope that a hint will not be lost. (1) (1) [Langhorne died in 1779, in his forty-fourth year. In 1773, he formed an acquaintance with the celebrated Hannah More. Meeting one day, at Weston-supra-Mare, upon the sea-shore, he wrote with the end of his stick upon the sand :— XVII.-WARD ON ORATORY. (1) "A System of Oratory, publicly read at Gresham [From the Critical Review, 1759. delivered in a Course of Lectures, College. By John Ward, LL.D. F.R.S. In two volumes, 8vo."] IF diction perfectly grammatical, and a method perfectly scientific; if the marks of extensive reading, and an omission of scarce aught that has been formerly advanced on the subject, demand applause, these lectures may assert their claim. Accurate and copious, they contain all that the Miss More scratched underneath with her whip, "Some firmer basis, polish'd Langhorne, choose, Her strains in solid characters rehearse, "A very lively, intellectual intercourse" (says Mr. Roberts)" was sustained between them, until a habit of intemperance, in which he had vainly sought relief under the pressure of domestic calamity, raised a barrier between him and persons of strict behaviour." The following copy of verses, written by Langhorne in his garden, were found among Hannah More's papers :— "Blow, blow, my sweetest rose ! For Hannah More will soon be here, "My sun-flower fair, abroad For her thy golden breast unfold, "Ye laurels, brighter bloom! For she your wreaths, to glory due, Has bound upon the hero's brow, (1) "Ye bays, your odours shed! For you her youthful temples bound, What time she trod on fairy ground, "Come, innocent and gay, Ye rural nymphs your love confess, See Roberts' Life of Hannah More, vol. i. p. 28.] (1) Dr. John Ward was Professor of Rhetoric in Gresham College for thirty-eight years. He was born in London in 1679, and died in 1758.] (1) [The Inflexible Captive.] (2) [Search after Happiness.] |