Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

And peaceful then yon aged ash shall stand;
In breathless calm the dusky cypress rise;
To-morrow's destiny the Gods command,
To-day is thine;-enjoy it, and be wise!
• Youth's radiant tide too swiftly rolls away;
Now, in its flow, let pleasures round thee bloom;
Join the gay dance, awake the melting lay,
'Ere hoary tresses blossom for the tomb !
Spears, and the Steed, in busy camps impel ;
And, when the early darkness veils the groves,
Amid the leafless boughs let whispers steal,
While frolic Beauty seeks the near alcoves.

Soft as thy tip-toe steps the mazes rove,

A laugh, half-smother'd, thy pleas'd ear shall meet,
And, sportive in the charming wiles of love,
Betray the artifice of coy retreat;

And then the ring, or, from her snowy arm,
The promis'd bracelet may thy force employ;
Her feign'd reluctance, height'ning every charm,

Shall add new value to the ravish'd toy.'

Of the more free paraphrases, we have an agreeable example in the ode addressed

To the Hon. THOMAS ERSKINE.

Horace, Book the Second, Ode the Third, imitated.
October 1796.

• Conscious the mortal stamp is on thy breast,
O ERSKINE! still an equal mind maintain,
That wild Ambition ne'er may goad thy rest,
Nor Fortune's smile awake thy triumph vain,
. Whether thro' toilsome tho' renowned years
'Tis thine to trace the Law's perplexing maze,
Or win the SACRED SEALS, whose awful cares
To high decrees devote thy honor'd days.
Where silver'd Poplars with the stately Pines
Mix their thick branches in the summer sky,
And the cool stream, whose trembling surface shines,
Laboriously oblique, is hurrying by;

There let thy duteous Train the banquet bring,
In whose bright cups the liquid ruby flows,
As Life's warm season, on expanded wing,
Presents her too, too transitory rose;

While every Muse and Grace auspicious wait,
As erst thy Handmaids, when with brow serene,
Gay thou didst rove where Buxton views elate
A golden Palace deck her savage scene *.

The Author had the pleasure of passing a fortnight with Mr. and

Mrs. Erskine at Buxton in August 1796.'

At

[ocr errors]

At frequent periods woo th' inspiring Band
Before thy days their summer-course have run,
While, with clos'd shears the fatal Sisters stand,
Nor aim to cut the brilliant thread they spun.
• Precarious tenant of that gay Retreat,

Fann'd by pure gales on Hampstead's airy downs
Where filial troops for thee delighted wait,
And their fair Mother's smile thy banquet crowns!
• Precarious tenant!-shortly thou may'st leave
These, and propitious Fortune's golden hoard;
Then spare not thou the stores, that shall receive,
When set thy orb, a less illustrious Lord.

• What can it then avail thee that thy pleas
Charm'd every car with TULLY's periods bland?
Or that the subject Passions they could seize,
And with the thunder of the GREEK Command?
What can it then avail thee that thy fame
Threw tenfold lustre on thy noble Line?
Since neither birth, nor self-won glory, claim
One hour's exemption from the sable shrine.

E'en now thy lot shakes in the Urn, whence Fate
Throws her pale edicts in reverseless doom!
Each issues in its turn, or soon, or late,

And lo! the great Man's prize!—a SILENT TÓMB!'

In the version of the Ode to Mecenas, (p. 141,) we could not help remarking one stanza as superior to the rest, and which reminded us of the pleasant, but too waggish imitations of Horace by the late Mr. Hall Stephenson:

Ah! happy friend! for whom an eye,

Of splendid and resistless fire,

Lays all its pointed arrows by,

For the mild gleams of soft desire!'

This is a large paraphrase on Horace's fulgentes oculos: but fifty stanzas, if equal in merit, would not be reckoned tedious on this subject.

The imitation of that delightful ode,

"Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis," &c.

is written, we are told, expressly for the benefit of those who cannot read the original. We should therefore have passed it without any remark, had not our eye been caught by some singular criticisms contained in a note. Miss Seward seems to

think that Horace is not sufficiently minute and copious in his descriptions; and, to our great surprise, she deduces the remark from this very ode, which is celebrated for its descriptive excellence. That the circumstances of the description are suggested forcibly, in few words, is the great and uncommon

Cc4

praise

368

praise of the Roman lyrist. Miss Seward observes that the
image of the well-fed sheep hastening home' is not picturesquez
and she thinks that, when he adds to see the weary oxen
dragging with languid neck the inverted ploughshare,' he gives
'perhaps the most poetic feature in this ode.'-We cannot sacri-
fice so much to politeness, as to acquiesce in this criticism.
How was it possible for the lady to overlook that delicious pas-
sage, which, on every perusal, awakes in the reader all the
pleasurable emotions of rural leisure and retirement?

"Libet jacere modo sub antiqua ilice:
Modo in tenaci gramine.

LABUNTUR ALTIS INTERIM RIPIS AQUÆ :
QUERUNTUR IN SILVIS AVES,

[ocr errors]

FONTESQUE LYMPHIS OBSTREPUNT MANANTIBUS,
SOMNOS QUOD INVITET LEVES."

The winter

These soothing ideas could not be more distinctly impressed in a thousand verses than in these last four lines: but the votary of minute description may feel dissatisfied, because the poet has not informed us whether the banks were shaded with beech or poplar, and whether the birds were ring-doves or turtles. This is the autumnal-tablet given by Horace. piece is not less correct in its colouring, nor less perfect in its design.-Though we must forbear to multiply our quotations, we cannot omit the very picturesque whole of that description, in which Miss S. has only been able to find one poetic image: "Has inter epulas, ut juvat pastas oves Videre PROPERANTES domum !

Videre FESSOS vomerem INVERSUM boves
COLLO trahentes LANGUIDO,

POSITOSQUE VERNAS, ditis EXAMEN domus,
CIRCUM RENIDENTES LARES !"

What a pleasing groupe has the poet here embodied! we sit at the table, partake the amusements, and enjoy the scenes, of the rustic philosopher.

In the last line of Miss S.'s imitation of this ode, she has condescended (we dare say, unconsciously) to borrow from the despot Johnson,' as she styles him: she speaks of misers,

who

"Against experienced disappointment, try

With gold to purchase that, which gold can never buy.” Every reader of Johnson's "London" must recollect this fine. passage:

But thou, should tempting villainy present,
All Marlbro' hoarded, or all Villiers spent,
Turn from the glitt'ring bribe thy scornful eye,
Nor give for gold, what gold could never buy.”

While

While we object to Miss Seward's censure of Horace's rural descriptions, we are aware that there are many beautiful passages in the writings of other authors, which comprehend a great variety of minute details: but their excellence does not consist in prolixity. Two instances in Comus occur to us, in which there is a peculiar beauty, because the time of the day is designed by the progress of rural occupations:

"Two such I saw, what time the labour'd ox
In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the swinkt hedger at his supper sat.”
"This evening late, by then the chewing flocks
Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb
Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold,
I sat me down to watch upon a bank
With ivy canopied, and interwove
With flaunting honeysuckle, and began,
Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy,
To meditate my rural minstrelsy."

We confess that we should wish to see this accomplished lady's talents exercised, in future, on original composition ra ther than on translation. The tones of her muse are naturally solemn and plaintive, and they will not easily assume new mo dulations. Her admirers will require no change of manner; and, as Miss Seward has ever shewn herself in her works the friend of Genius and of Virtue, we have no doubt that her pro ductions will continue to meet with support, from the most liberal and best-informed part of society.

ART. II. A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution; in Thirteen Discourses, Preached in North America between the Years 1763 and 1775 with an Historical Preface. By Jonathan Boucher, A. M. and F. A. S. Vicar of Epsom in the County of Surrey. 8vo. pp. 700. 9s. Boards. Robinsons. 1797.

THE attention of the reader of this volume will be caught at the opening of it, and he will be materially instructed in the principles and views of the author, by the dedication to George Washington, Esq. This dedication is written in a manly and elegant strain, and opens thus:

• SIR,

In prefixing your name to a work avowedly hostile to that Revolution in which you bore a distinguished part, I am not conscious that I deserve to be charged with inconsistency. I do not address myself. to the General of a Conventional Army; but to the late dignified President of the United States, the friend of rational and sober freedom.'

Mr.

And peaceful then yon aged ash shall stand;
In breathless calm the dusky cypress rise;
To-morrow's destiny the Gods command,
To-day is thine;-enjoy it, and be wise!
• Youth's radiant tide too swiftly rolls away;
Now, in its flow, let pleasures round thee bloom;
Join the gay dance, awake the melting lay,
'Ere hoary tresses blossom for the tomb!
Spears, and the Steed, in busy camps impel;
And, when the early darkness veils the groves,
Amid the leafless boughs let whispers steal,
While frolic Beauty seeks the near alcoves.

Soft as thy tip-toe steps the mazes rove,

A laugh, half-smother'd, thy pleas'd ear shall meet,
And, sportive in the charming wiles of love,
Betray the artifice of coy retreat;

• And then the ring, or, from her snowy arm,
The promis'd bracelet may thy force employ;
Her feign'd reluctance, height'ning every charm,
Shall add new value to the ravish'd toy.'

Of the more free paraphrases, we have an agreeable example in the ode addressed

To the Hon. THOMAS ERSKINE.

Horace, Book the Second, Ode the Third, imitated.
October 1796.

• Conscious the mortal stamp is on thy breast,
O ERSKINE! still an equal mind maintain,
That wild Ambition ne'er may goad thy rest,
Nor Fortune's smile awake thy triumph vain,
• Whether thro' toilsome tho' renowned years
'Tis thine to trace the Law's perplexing maze,
Or win the SACRED SEALS, whose awful cares
To high decrees devote thy honor'd days.
• Where silver'd Poplars with the stately Pines
Mix their thick branches in the summer sky,
And the cool stream, whose trembling surface shines,
Laboriously oblique, is hurrying by;

There let thy duteous Train the banquet bring,
In whose bright cups the liquid ruby flows,
As Life's warm season, on expanded wing,
Presents her too, too transitory rose;

• While every Muse and Grace auspicious wait,
As erst thy Handmaids, when with brow serene,
Gay thou didst rove where Buxton views elate
A golden Palace deck her savage scene *.

The Author had the pleasure of passing a fortnight with Mr. and

Mrs. Erskine at Buxton in August 1796.'

'At

« AnteriorContinuar »