called Slander and Praise, and his trumpeter Triton. The praises of each petitioner are then resounded, according to the partial or capricious appointment of Fame; and equal merits obtain very different success. There is much satire and humour in these requests and rewards, and in the disgraces and honours which are indiscriminately distributed by the queen, without discernment and by chance. The poet then enters the house or labyrinth of Rumour. It was built of sallow twigs, like a cage, and therefore admitted every sound. Its doors were also more numerous than leaves on the trees, and always stood open. These are romantic exaggerations of Ovid's inventions on the same subject. It was moreover sixty miles in length, and perpetually turning round. From this house, says the poet, issued tidings of every kind, like fountains and rivers from the sea. Its inhabitants, who were eternally employed in hearing or telling news, together with the rise of reports, and the formation of lies, are then humorously described the company is chiefly composed of sailors, pilgrims, and pardoners. At length our author is awakened at seeing a venerable personage of great authority: and thus the Vision abruptly concludes. Pope has imitated this piece, with his usual elegance of diction and harmony of versification. But in the meantime, he has not only misrepresented the story, but marred the character of the He has endeavoured to correct its extravagances by new poem. refinements and additions of another cast; but he did not consider, that extravagances are essential to a poem of such a structure, and even constitute its beauties. An attempt to unite order and exactness of imagery with a subject formed on principles so professedly romantic and anomalous, is like giving Corinthian pillars to a Gothic palace. When I read Pope's elegant imitation of this piece, I think I am walking among the modern monuments unsuitably placed in Westminster Abbey. (From the Same.) GOWER'S MISTAKES IT is pleasant to observe the strange mistakes which Gower, a man of great learning, and the most general scholar of his age, has committed in this poem, concerning books which he never saw, his violent anachronisms, and misrepresentations of the most common facts and characters. He mentions the Greek poet Menander, as one of the first historians, or "first enditours of the olde cronike," together with Esdras, Solinus, Josephus, Claudius Sulpicius, Termegis, Pandulfe, Frigidilles, Ephiloquorus, and Pandas. It is extraordinary that Moses should not be here mentioned, in preference to Esdras. Solinus is ranked so high because he records nothing but wonders; and Josephus, on account of his subject, had long been placed almost on a level with the Bible. He is seated on the first pillar in Chaucer's House of Fame. His Jewish History, translated into Latin by Rufinus in the fourth century, had given rise to many old poems and romances; and his Maccabaics, or history of the seven Maccabees martyred with their father Eleazar under the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, a separate work, translated also by Rufinus, produced the Judas Maccabee of Belleperche in the year 1240, and at length enrolled the Maccabees among the most illustrious heroes of romance. On this account too, perhaps, Esdras is here so respectably remembered. I suppose Sulpicius is Sulpicius Severus, a petty annalist of the fifth century. Termegis is probably Trismegistus, the mystic philosopher, certainly not an historian, at least not an antient one. Pandulfe seems to be Pandulph of Pisa, who wrote lives of the Popes, and died in the year 1198. Frigidilles is perhaps Fregedaire, a Burgundian who flourished about the year 641, and wrote a chronicon from Adam to his own times; often printed, and containing the best account of the Franks after Gregory of Tours. Our author, who has partly suffered from ignorant transcribers and printers, by Ephiloquorus undoubtedly intended Eutropius. In the next paragraph, indeed, he mentions Herodotus; yet not as an early historian, but as the first writer of a system of the metrical art, "of metre of ryme and of cadence." We smile, when Hector in Shakespeare quotes Aristotle; but Gower gravely informs his reader, that Ulysses was a clerke, accomplished with a knowledge of all the sciences, a great rhetorician and magician : that he learned rhetoric of Tully, magic of Zoroaster, astronomy of Ptolemy, philosophy of Plato, divination of the prophet Daniel, proverbial instruction of Solomon, botany of Macer, and medicine of Hippocrates. And in the seventh book Aristotle, or the philosophre, is introduced reciting to his scholar Alexander the Great a disputation between a Jew and a pagan, who meet between Cairo and Babylon, concerning their respective religions: the end of the story is to show the cunning, cruelty, and ingratitude of the Jew, which are at last deservedly punished. But I believe Gower's apology must be, that he took this narrative from some Christian legend, which was feigned, for a religious purpose, at the expense of all probability and propriety. (From the Same.) CHATTERTON'S FORGERIES As to internal arguments, an unnatural affectation of ancient spelling and of obsolete words not belonging to the period assigned to the poems, strikes us at first sight. Of these old words combinations are frequently formed, which never yet existed in the unpolished state of the English language: and sometimes the antiquated diction is most inartificially misapplied by an improper contexture with the present modes of speech. The attentive reader will also discern, that our poet sometimes forgets his assumed character, and does not always act his part with consistency for the chorus, or interlude, of the damsel who drowns herself, which I have cited at length from the Tragedy of Ella, is much more intelligible, and free from uncouth expressions, than the general phraseology of these compositions. In the Battle of Hastings, said to be translated from the Saxon, Stonehenge is called a Druidical temple. The battle of Hastings was fought in the year 1066. We will grant the Saxon original to have been written soon afterwards; about which time, no other notion prevailed concerning this miraculous monument, than the supposition which had been delivered down by long and constant tradition, that it was erected in memory of Hengist's massacre. This was the established and uniform opinion of the Welsh and Armorican bards, who most probably received it from the Saxon minstrels and that this was the popular belief at the time of the battle of Hastings, appears from the evidence of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote his history not more than eighty years after that memorable event. And in this doctrine Robert of Gloucester and all the monkish chroniclers agree. That the Druids constructed this stupendous pile for a place of worship was a discovery reserved for the sagacity of a wiser age, and the In the Epistle to laborious discussion of modern antiquaries. Lydgate, prefixed to the Tragedy, our poet condemns the absurdity and impropriety of the religious dramas, and recommends some great story of human manners, as most suitable for theatrical representation. But this idea is the result of that taste and discrimination which could only belong to a more advanced period of society. But, above all, the cast of thought, the complexion of the sentiments, and the structure of the composition, evidently prove these pieces not ancient. The Ode to Ella, for instance, has exactly the air of modern poetry; such, I mean, as is written at this day, only disguised with antique spelling and phraseology. That Rowlie was an accomplished literary character, a scholar, an historian, and an antiquarian, if contended for, I will not deny. Nor is it impossible that he might write English poetry. But that he is the writer of the poems which I have here cited, and which have been so confidently ascribed to him, I am not yet convinced. On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that these poems were composed by the son of the schoolmaster before mentioned; who inherited the inestimable treasures of Cannynge's chest in Radcliffe Church, as I have already related at large. This youth, who died at eighteen, was a prodigy of genius; and would have proved the first of English poets, had he reached a maturer age. From his childhood, he was fond of reading and writing verses; and some of his early compositions, which he wrote without any design to deceive, have been judged to be most astonishing productions by the first critic of the present age. From his situation and connections, he became a skilful practitioner in various kinds of handwriting. Availing himself therefore of his poetical talent, and his facility in the graphic art, to a miscellany of obscure and neglected parchments, which were commodiously placed in his own possession, he was tempted to add others of a more interesting nature, and such as he was enabled to forge, under these circumstances, without fear of detection. As to his knowledge of the old English literature, which is rarely the study of a young poet, a sufficient quantity of obsolete words and phrases were readily attainable from the glossary to Chaucer, and to Percy's Ballads. It is confessed that this youth wrote the Execution of Sir Charles Baldwin; and he who could forge that poem, might easily forge all the rest. Those who have been conversant in the works even of the best of our old English poets, well know that one of their leading characteristics is inequality. In these writers, splendid descriptions, ornamental comparisons, poetical images, and striking thoughts, occur but rarely; for many pages together they are tedious, prosaic, and uninteresting. On the contrary, the poems before us are everywhere supported: they are throughout poetical and animated; they have no imbecilities of style or sentiment. Our old English bards abound in unnatural conceptions, strange imaginations, and even the most ridiculous absurdities; but Rowlie's poems present us with no incongruous combinations, no mixture of manners, institutions, customs, and characters : they appear to have been composed after ideas of discrimination had taken place, and when even common writers had begun to conceive, on most subjects, with precision and propriety. There are indeed, in the Battle of Hastings, some great anachronisms; and practices are mentioned which did not exist till afterwards; but these are such inconsistencies as proceeded from fraud as well as ignorance: they are such as no old poet could have possibly fallen into, and which only betray an unskilful imitation of ancient manners. The verses of Lydgate and his immediate successors are often rugged and unmusical; but Rowlie's poetry sustains one uniform tone of harmony; and if we brush away the asperities of the antiquated spelling, conveys its cultivated imagery in a polished and agreeable strain of versification. Chatterton seems to have thought, that the distinction of old from modern poetry consisted only in the use of old words. counterfeiting the coins of a rude age, he did not forget the usual application of an artificial rust; but this disguise was not sufficient to conceal the elegance of the workmanship. (From the Same.) MEDIEVAL IMITATIONS OF THE CLASSICS In IT must be allowed, that the scenes of Virgil's sixth book have many fine strokes of the terrible; but Dante's colouring is of a more gloomy temperature. There is a sombrous cast in his imagination; and he has given new shades of horror to the classical hell. We may say of Dante, that Grows darker at his frown. Hell |