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that no such consideration induced Milton to forbear the use of rhyme. The reasons he has himself given are sufficient to convince us that he was influenced by no such motive.-Dryden would employ machinery. Whether his subject had been king Arthur or the Black Prince, the introduction, as he proposes and endeavours to justify of good and bad angels, not only is not necessary, but, in our opinion, would have been highly injurious. A few philosophers excepted, the people of Greece and Rome believed in the existence and interposition in human affairs, of their gods. Hence the propriety, in Homer and Virgil, of making them parties in operations of magnitude, though their personal appearance and cooperation might have been omitted. But how few, at the present day, give credence to the immediate assistance or opposition of angels or devils. Let the poet place his subject ten centuries back, the objection loses none of its efficacy. To use the language of sir William Davenant in the preface to his Gondibert, the reader "is led so often into heaven and hell, that, by conversation with gods and with ghosts, he is sometimes deprived of those natural probabilities in story, which are instructive to human life."

Mr. Eustaphieve has taken for the time of his poem the period when the Christian religion was first introduced into Muscovy. We do not consider it necessary, whatever most critics may say to the contrary, for the poet to go back even fifty years. Lucan failed because he "fettered his feet in the shackles of a historian." This was not requisite. Of history the poet may use only such parts as are convenient. He should be able to say with Heriod:

Ιδμεν ψευδέα πολλα λέγειν ετυμοιςιν ομοίας Ιδμεν δ', εθελωμεν, αλήθεα μυθηςαςθαι. Cu. v. 28, 29.

We know how to utter the fictitious resembling the true and we know how, when we wish, to introduce what is real.—If a good epic cannot be written without the use of supernatural agency, nor without great distance of time, it cannot be well executed with these helps: there must be a want of genius and judgment. Homer wrote but a short time after the Trojan war. We have from him the character and manners of the age. From Virgil we receive, in a great degree, manners and characters of conjecture. We are sensible that almost all critics consider it -essential that the time in which the scenes

of an epic should be cast, should be at least many centuries back; and one reason for this necessity is alleged to be, because the poet cannot else employ fiction. Another and a greater reason is offered, viz. that supernatural agency will gain no credit in modern times: men will not believe in the personal interposition of ghosts, angels, and evil spirits at the present day; yet may think it not improbable that in former times they were quite familiar agents in human concerns. But the truth is that machinery, so far from being a requisite, has an inauspicious effect on the whole fable, even on that part which is bottomed on facts. It is as necessary that the scene and time of a novel should be placed at a great distance, as that the scene and time of the epopee should be so placed. The great art is to make the manners, characters, and transactions, which are fictitious TVμ

o, similar to realities. He who is incompetent to this, as it respects the present age, must be equally incompetent respecting any age that has passed.

With regard to the hero of an epic poem, most critics insist that he should be almost a perfect human being. Beni says: "Nel poema Heroico, conviene esprimer l'idea di perfettissimo capitano, o vero formar heroe, in cui sia il colmo di tutte le virtù militari e civili." Such, however, was not the hero of the Iliad: nor of Paradise Lost; whether that hero was, as Dryden declared, the devil, or was Adam.

Father Rapin seems to be of the same opinion; and hence gives greater credit to Virgil for his hero, than to Homer: not, however, much to the reputation of the former: for he says Virgil has formed his hero from all the good qualities of Achilles and Ulysses; from Ajax, Nestor, and Diomed; and from the several virtues of Themistocles, Epaminondas, Alexander, Hannibal, Jurgurtha, &e. Thus, to give a perfect beauty, Apelles stole a grace from one, a curl from another, a dimple, feature or limb from others, till his picture was complete. But whence the necessity, utility, or propriety, of depicting the hero as perfect? Or why should perfection be confined to the principal hero? Why not form all the characters on the same model? Is Charles Grandison more read than Tom Jones? Had Shakespeare conformed to such a rule, his works would hardly deserve perusal. It has been asserted that Homer and Virgil wrote principally for the instruction of princes; and Rapin says, such should be the greatest object of every heroic poem; the chief character in which, should be a

person of consummate virtue; the model by which kings should form themselves. Such a hero, if sought in history, would rarely be found. There has never been more than one Washington. Will not princes, and all other readers, be equally instructed by seeing the ill effects of the foibles and vices of the hero?

The unities of time, place, and action, have given the critics no inconsiderable uneasiness. Should the poet, in respect to each of these, write, as probably did Homer, without the dicta of criticism, and pursue the directions of his own judgment, he would be quite as apt to give pleasure to the reader. Had Virgil commenced with the departure of Eneas from Troy; or had the Enead opened with his landing in Italy, and had the previous occurrences been judiciously introduced by episodes, who will say that the poem would have been less gratifying? Homer preserves complete unity of place. Virgil confines his hero to Carthage, Sicily, and Italy. Milton usurps infinity for the seats of his actions. The time occupied in the Hiad, and that in the Odyssey, reckoning from the departure of Ulysses from Calypso, to his discovering himself, is far shorter than that of the Eneid; yet the time of the Eneid is no serious objection; por would it be, had it been extended to seven years, the interest of the fable remaining undiminished to the last. When Turnus was killed, the great object of Eneas was accomplished; and we should hardly wish another book, describing the wedding of the hero with Lavinia, or a delineation of his palace and out-houses: and it has well been observed, that the death of Hector ought to have closed the Iliad.

He, who would compose an heroic poem, deserving the permanent admiration of enlightened posterity, must bring to his task no such mediocrity of intellectual resources as distinguishes the author of Demetrius. He must have received from the liberality of heaven an ample portion of the mens divinior. His literary acquisitions must be extensive. Much he must have read, and more he must have meditated, compared, and investigated. Much he must have enjoyed, and more, perhaps, have suffered. Scarcely a passion should be unknown to him, from close examination or large experience. The wings of his Pegasus should never tire; nor the hands of judgment one moment be diverted from the reins. Tears must now stand in his eye, caused by the sight of spectacles of wo, which his own imagina Jen has formed; and now his heart must

harden to accompany his heroes to the embattled field. To distinguish between the tawdry and the elegant; the beautiful and the vapid; the pathetic of adults and the pathetic of children; the simple and the silly; the sublime and the bombastic; he must widely possess, and incessantly exercise the most vigilant discrimination. With most modes of life, and grades of society, he must be well acquainted: having been familiar with the great, and intimate with the humble. He must have long well known, and deeply studied, the vast variety of human characters; and havetraced the various operations of events on different persons; so that no one of his characters shall know or express a feeling or sentiment belonging to another. Of the sciences he ought to possess a general knowledge; with the general agency, influence, and effects of nature, a thorough acquaintance. The latter is but imperfectly obtained from books. A curious, tasteful, ardent, long, delighting and unwearied investigation of all that charms the eye, is necessary for description, comparison, ornament, and illustration. He must possess an extensive intimacy with the choicest words and modes of expression in his own language; and ought to possess a knowledge of the Roman and Grecian languages; and of some of the modern tongues of Europe; that he may be enabled to adopt new idioms and inflexions of speech, not savoring of quaintness, harshness, or pedantry; but frequently graceful or energetic. Above all, he must possess, and largely too, the power of originating new situations of the human character; to be unfolded with novelty of language and description. He must be gifted with the nicest powers of taste in the introduction of rhetorical figures; well knowing how often to use them, and to what extent. He must not be the dupe of critics; who, from Aristotle to Bossu and father Rapin, and from them to too many of the present day, draw most of their canons from the works of Homer and Virgil; but must have a sound understanding, and independence, that he may daringly and correctly pursue new paths; in following which the reader may be charmed, however the stagyrite and Frenchman may frown. He must exercise the duties of a stern, patient critic over his every line, and even every word; to amend, to polish; and, above all, to erase. Of all the varied melody of metre; of all the possible changes of musical prosody, of which the language is capable; he must be entirely a master. His inventive powers must be

abundant, and his judgment exact, that he may well consider what to reject. For embellishment or elucidation, must be familiar to him much of the watery world, from the cockle to the whale; of the vegetable kingdom, from the violet to the cedar; and of animal existence, from the polypus to man. He must be obeyed when he says to the secrets of human bosoms, open your doors. In determining what shall be his fable, he should be long choosing, and beginning late." This fixt, he must well study, for interest and effect, how, where and when to commence his relation, and how, where, and when to close it.

Such are some of the qualifications indispensible in an epic poet. With these, after years devoted to its execution, a work may perhaps be produced not unworthy the proud premium of immortality! an honour to the poet, to his country, and his age. Yet, well may the stoutest of poetical hearts hesitate, after so many and so vast failures as have been witnessed of late; for, how bitter must it be, after bringing into one epic aggregate all his choicest poetical possessions,-after ardently expecting immediate, extensive and immense applause,-after exposing to the literary world his mightiest effort, for the poet to wake from his fond dream, with his bookseller's sorrowful tale, that the critics condemn his work; that the people will not purchase; that the printed edition will never sell, and another edition will never be wanted. Some of sir Richard's epics passed through three editions during his life; and perhaps he died with a belief that posterity would place his bust on the same base with that of Homer. Like the author of that headless and trunkless thing, "The Columbiad," perhaps Blackmore pleased himself with a belief that the envy and malice of wicked wits, or political opponents, would cease at his death; and that his fame would increase as his bones decayed. But can Southey, or Lucien Bonaparte, or Scott, with his hop, skip and jump rhyming epic-lings, still hug the belief that their works, centuries hence, will be found in the libraries of the learned and the great? Can Mr. Eustaphieve so have mistaken the extent and force of his genius, as to deem himself competent to the performance of such an undertaking? We recollect having read, some years since, a tragedy, called “ Alexis,” written by this gentleman, and acted two or three times in Boston. It was ill planned, and ill executed; and of poetry, it possessed scarcely "the shadow of a

shade." From the perusal of this second murder of the son of Peter the Great, we confess we had little expectation of being gratified by the perusal of an epic from the same pen. There are some disadvantages attendant on moving in a high sphere. Mr. Eustaphieve has been many years Russian consul in Boston. Associating with many of the principal families in that town, he has acquired many of that description of friends, all of whom would shrink from the incivility, when questioned, of informing him that his poetical writings were very deficient in poetry; and many of whom would pretend to admire them in his presence. He is a very irritable gentleman; (the strongest proof of his being one of the irritable genus ;) and who among his friends would be so unfriendly to his feelings, as to inform him that he had made a gross mistake, when he strangely mistook himself for one of the beloved of the Nine?When it was announced that his tragedy was to be acted, who that had drank of his wine, or of whose wine he had partaken, would neglect purchasing tickets for his family, or refuse to the author the cheap and gratifying expenditure of a compliment on his performance, and a denunciation of the miserable performers on the stage, who almost murdered, for the third time, the unfortunate Alexis.

On the subject of the late war, between, France and Russia, and on the resources, and then present state of the Russian empire, Mr. Eustaphieve was the author of several publications, which were not without their effect in establishing his character as a statesman. Had he confined his researches and his literary publications to similar subjects, he would have been saved from that severe and lasting mortification which almost invariably follows ill success in poetry. There is, in particulars, one consideration which we should suppose would have restrained him, at least for the present. The English is not his vernacular language; and a far longer and more extensive acquaintance with our tongue, than he appears to have enjoyed, was absolutely necessary in a work like that before us. This immediately appears on perusal, in numerous instances of bad syntax, in an incorrect knowledge of the meaning or force of certain words, in his evidently very circumscribed intimacy with the most energetic, majestic and appropriate words; and in his vast incapacity in distinguishing between words and phrases, common or mean, and words and phrases of elegance and dignity. His is such a knowledge as we have

of the vulgar or lofty expressions or words in the Latin and Greek tongues. Few of the best scholars are able to discriminate. But the English is a living language. A Russian may have sufficient knowledge of it to be able to read it; but not always to ascertain the difference between words and expressions that are poetical, and such as are prosaic.

In examining this poem we shall begin, as in a Hebrew volume, at the end, where the author places his preface; by him called "Apology." He observes: "The classic reader, and the candid critic, who must be sensible that an epic poem is no ordinary undertaking, will not refuse their patience and indulgence to such casualties as may arise in the course of the work, either to retard its progress or change the intended form and manner of its appearance. They will allow the poet-after he had [has] laid the foundation, imparted sufficient impulse to the subject, invested his heroes with proper characteristics, expressive of their future destiny, and gained a resting point at some memorable epoch of the narrative and action-to pause awhile, to look around him with an eye of anticipation, and to listen, with a prophetic ear, in the anxious hope of discovering, if possible, whether the completion of his intellectual labours is likely to be greeted with the 'spirit-moving sound' of enlightened approbation, or denounced by the chilling voice of apathy and displeasure." The author then proceeds to state that the present volume is all a fiction, excepting the names of the two principal personages, forming thereby a natural division, or boundary between the province of imagination, and that of history, reserved for the next effort;" and that it "may properly be viewed as a separate part, or as a concluded introduction to the main subject yet to be developed in its full extent and preconceived magnitude." His logy thus concludes: "He, therefore, respectfully takes his leave for the present; adding merely, that a few notes, and a critical essay upon the epopee, particularly on Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, are contemplated in connexion with the original design of the poem."

apo

Perhaps it was a prudent determination in Mr. Eustaphieve, to offer the public only a part of his contemplated work; intending, should it not meet general approbation, to save the labour of composing what would hardly be read. Our opinion, however, is, that self love and advise of friends," will prompt him to finish the poem "in its full extent and preconceived magnitude." This, how

ever, is not necessary; for what is given already forms a complete tale, however capable it may be of extension. If another volume, however, should not appear, the world may be deprived of his "critical essay on the epopee." Of the magnitude of such a loss, nevertheless, "the classical and critical reader" can judge, with no great incertitude, after having finished the perusal of what is already given.

Mr. Eustaphieve remarks: "Neither can the part thus presented, be it done so well as to excite interest and sympathy, or so ill as to provoke the opposite feelings, become the means of prejudicing the whole; [prejudicing the reader against the whole;] it being evident, that, in the former case, the general desire to obtain the remainder would [will] rather increase than diminish; and, in the latter the prospect could not be worse, while the benefit of the experiment would still be felt, so far at least as to prevent much useless waste of health and time, and much additional mortification." What is life without health? is a question often asked. "Time," says Dr. Franklin, "is money." Mortification is extremely afflicting. We hope Mr. E. will preserve his health, save time, and escape from all further needless mortification.

The poem is dedicated, in formal prose, to the empress of all the Russias; and, in the commencement of the poem, to both the autocrat of all the Russias, and his lady. The work thus opens:

"The far famed Prince I sing: the royal youth Endow'd with virtue's noblest gifts, who liv'd Whose voice, inspir'd, bade prostrate Slavia* To bless his country, and be blest himself;

rise,

And, by the sound of his triumphant steps,
Seek freedom's way through victory and peace."

Dr. Johnson, in the first number of his Rambler, wishes there was an established mode for essayists to commence, as in epic poetry. Homer began with mentioning his subject and invoking the muse ; and hence most epic writers have followed his example. "I sing," or "sing muse," forms the proem of most of his successors; and his own Odyssey is begun in the same

manner:

Avdga mos evvETTE, Mousa, x. T. λ. "Arma virumque cano."-Virgil. "Bella per Emathios plusquam civilia campos, Jusque datum sceleri canimus."-Lucan,

* This word, our author informs us, signifies glory in the Russian language: Sclavonian, as applied to Russia, is a corruption.

"Canto l'armi pietose el capitano.”—Tasso. "Lo I the man," &c.--Spenser.

"I sing the man who Juda's sceptre bore."

Davideis.

"Je chante le hero qui regna sur la France." Henriade.

Such indeed is the mode of beginning most of the heroic poems extant. Davenant refused the trammels of servile imitation. He, whatever his success, had the independence in several points to pursue the direction of his own judgment. His introduction follows:

"Of all the Lombards, by their trophies known, Who sought fame soon, and had her trophies long,

King Aribert best seem'd to fill the throne, And bred most business for heroic song," &c.

Servum pecus can be applied to no writers with more justice than to the authors of heroic poems. How different would have been the Eneid, had Virgil never read Homer, how much superior to what it is, we might probably exclaim (To be continued.)

ART. 8. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto the Fourth. By LORD BYRON. 18mo. pp. circa 250. New-York. Kirk & Mercein, and A. T. Goodrich, & Co.

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UCH is the fertility of lord Byron's muse, that the press is hardly able to keep pace with her prolificacy. There is, indeed, an anachronism in the accouchement of this poem in this country,-its immediate predecessor in England, not having yet made its appearance here. We allude to the metrical romance of Beppo, an amusing burlesque upon that school of poetry, in which his lordship has taken his degrees,-and the pedantry of which, as a graduate, he has a license to ridicule. The specimens of this facetious production, which we have seen in some of the English journals, bear out the estimation we had formed of his lordship's satirical talent, from his caustic attack upon the Edinburgh Reviewers, and confirm those indications of humour, which have often peeped out, in bitter guise, in his graver compositions. But of Beppo hereafter a work of a very different complexion claims our notice now.

The fourth Canto of Childe Harold is prefaced by a dedication of the whole poem to John Hobhouse, Esq.-who has obligingly furnished the notes that accompany this division of it,-which like many other commentaries, exceed the text in bulk; and who has, moreover, published a separate volume of historical illustrations, which exceeds them both. After a lavish panegyric upon the virtues of his friend, who had been the companion of his frequent, 'pilgrimages,' his lordship appositely observes, by way of salvo to their mutual modesty it is not for minds like ours to give or receive flattery!"-Of the poem itself his lordship says, "with regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I

had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith's 'Citizen of the World,' whom no body would believe was a Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined, that I had drawn a distinction between the au thor and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether→→→ and have done so." His lordship further tells us, what for his sake, we hope is true, though we do not believe it, that "the opinions which have been, or may be, formed on that subject, are now a matter of indifference."

The argument of this canto, it is difficult to draw out,-simply because it is not easy to discover it. We can, however, describe the course of the author's reflections, though we cannot always per ceive the catenation of his thoughts. He finds himself in Venice, on a bridge between the ducal palace and a prison, and he sees, in his "mind's eye," the rise, progress, and decline of the Venetian Republic, and all the events that embellish its history, or give interest to its fate. A variety of metaphysical speculations grow out of this survey of the past and present. All at once he is transported to Rome,-then to the tomb of Petrarch at Arquá. Petrarch brings Tasso to mind, and Tasso takes him to Ferrara. In a moment, he revisits Rome-and quits it, the next moment, for Florence. Incontinently he plunges into the lake of Thrasimene,-then quaffs of the wave of the Clitumnus-then dashes down the cataract of Velino,—then mounts the Appenines, and straightway finds himself again on the banks of the Tibes. The

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