A fell boar

Rush'd from the wood, enrag'd by a deep wound
Some huntsman gave him up he ploughs the ground,
And whetting of his tusks, about 'gan roam,
Chumping his venom's moisture into foum.
Thealma and her maid, half dead with fear,

Cry'd out for help: their cry soon reacht his ear,
And he came snuffling tow'rd them: still they cry,
And fear gave wings unto them as they fly.
The sheep ran bleating o'er the pleasant plain,
And airy Echo answers them again;

Redoubling of their cries to fetch in aid,
Whilst to the wood the fearful virgins made,

Where a new fear assay'd them: 'twas their hap
To meet the boar's pursuer in the

gap

With his sword drawn, and all besmear'd with gore,
Which made their case more despʼrate than before,

As they imagin'd; yet so well as fear

And doubt would let them, as the man drew near

They implor'd his help: he minds them not, but spying

The chased boar in a thick puddle lying,

Tow'rds him he makes; the boar was soon aware,

And with an hideous noise sucks in the air.

Upon his guard he stands, his tusks new whets,

And up on end his grisly bristles sets.

His wary foe went traversing his ground,
Spying out where was best to give a wound.
And now Thealma's fears afresh began
To seize on her; her care's now for the man,
Lest the adventurous youth should get some hurt,
Or die untimely up th' boar flings the dirt,
Dy'd crimson with his blood; his foe at length
Watching his time, and doubling of his strength,
Gave him a wound so deep, it let out life,
And set a bloody period to their strife.

The huntsman turns out to be Thealma's brother, Prince Anaxus, who had supposed his sister dead. They recognize each other with delight, and go together to Thealma's cottage. The shadows of night now fell upon the fields, and all Arcadia was at rest, except the fisherman Rhotus, who was yet at sea. By the light of the

moon he espied a frigate that he discovered to have come from Lemnos. The master of the ship hailed the fisherman, and, after dropping an anchor, invited him on board. He at once obeyed the call, and found all the passengers with such an air of sadness in their countenances as indicated that some misfortune had befallen them. The most conspicuous of them, a grave old lord who went by the name of Cleon, questioned the honest fisher as to the news of Arcadia. Rhotus, on this, gives a description of this paradise of the poets, as it was in the age of gold, to which unhappily the age of iron had succeeded.

This description, which is too long to quote, reminds me of some passages in Sidney's pastoral romance. Who would not wish to live in such an age and country, as Sidney and Chalkhill have described, and have inscribed upon his monument (as on the tomb in the picture of Poussin), "I ALSO WAS AN Arcadian !"

"Would I had fallen upon those happy days,
That poets celebrate; those golden times,
And those Arcadian scenes, that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose."

Cowper.

We cannot but marvel at the cold severity of Godwin's judgment when he confessed that, in perusing Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, the thought occurred to him that our ancestors who admired it, must have had a blood that crept but feebly in their veins, and that they were yet only half awaked from the stupidity of the savage state. They had indeed no taste for the convulsive contortions and melodramatic horrors that we look for in the modern Muse; but such fresh and faithful and Claude-like representations of external nature and rural objects as abound in Sidney's prose and in Spenser's verse, and impart a feeling of the open air, were congenial to their healthier imaginations. Lord Orford, too, in his "Royal and Noble Authors," has told us that

the Arcadia is " tedious, lamentable, and pedantic*." It is said, however, that it gave delight to Shakspeare, and even in a later day to Milton; and their admiration is a tolerable set-off against the sneers of modern critics. It might have been supposed, as I think Hazlitt has observed, that the single pastoral image of the shepherd boy piping as though he should never be old, would have saved it from the contempt of every reader who has himself any share of imagination. It is true that the style is occasionally quaint and prolix, and the sentiments affected and fantastic; but the strange or unsightly foliage of some few trees of this Arcadian Orchard do not render less delightful the ripe and precious fruits that abound beneath it and the general beauty of the scene.

Both Rhotus and Cleon

But let us return to the poem. are subsequently discovered to be noblemen of high character, who had been persecuted by the government;—the latter had been banished. It is not at all necessary to enter into the minute details of their adventures. To confess the truth, the whole story of the poem is a little tedious, and there are so many plots within plots, and the main thread is so intricately interwoven with the general texture, that nothing but the exquisite truth and simplicity of the descriptions, and the sweetness and variety of the verse, could make so long and involved a narrative at all supportable. On this account I shall not weary the reader or myself, with following up the progress of the story, but select such detached passages as will show the author's genius to

Sir William Temple, in his Essay on Poetry, has paid a glowing tribute to the merits of the Arcadia. "The true spirit or vein of ancient poetry," says he, "in this kind," (prose romance, a kind of poetry in prose) " seems most to shine in Sir Philip Sidney, whom I esteem both the greatest poet, and the noblest genius of any that have left writings behind them, and published in ours or any other modern language; a person born capable, not only of forming the greatest ideas, but of leaving the noblest examples, if the length of his life had been equal to the excellence of his wit and virtues."

the best advantage.

The following description of the Temple of Diana, is a picture as highly finished as any thing in modern art.

Within a little silent grove hard by
Upon a small ascent, he might espy
A stately chapel, richly gilt without,
Beset with shady sycamores about:
And ever and anon he might well hear
A sound of musick steal in at his ear
As the wind gave it being so sweet an air
Would strike a syren mute and ravish her.
He sees no creature that might cause the same,
But he was sure that from the grove it came.
And to the grove he goes to satisfy

The curiosity of ear and eye.

Thórough the thick leav'd boughs he makes a way,
Nor could the scratching brambles make him stay;
But on he rushes, and climbs up the hill,
Thóróugh a glade he saw, and heard his fill.

A hundred virgins there he might espy
Prostrate before a marble deity:
Which by its portraiture appear'd to be
The image of DIANA: on their knee

They tender'd their devotions: with sweet airs,
Off'ring the incense of their praise and prayers.
Their garments all alike ;-

And cross their snowy silken robes, they wore
An azure scarf, with stars embroidered o'er.
Their hair in curious tresses was knit up,
Crown'd with a silver crescent on the top.
A silver bow their left hand held, their right
For their defence, held a sharp-headed flight
Drawn from their broidered quiver, neatly tied
In silken cords, and fastened to their side.
Under their vestments something short before
White buskins lac'd with ribbanding they wore.
It was a catching sight for a young eye
That Love had fir'd before; he might espy
One, whom the rest had sphere-like circled round,
Whose head was with a golden chaplet crown'd.
He could not see her face, only his ear

Was blest with the sweet words that came from her.

Who would suppose, from the style of this beautiful passage, that it had been written upwards of three centuries ago? Dr. Johnson knew very little of our old English poetry, or he would never have so egregiously overrated the improvements of the moderns. It is wonderful how slight a change has been effected in our language in so long a period as three hundred years. There is nothing in the lines just quoted to indicate their antiquity. There is a greater number of old phrases in some of our living poets than in the page of Chalkhill. Though we dislike the incongruous mixture of archaisms and neologisms which deform the productions of too many of the poets of the present day, we observe with great delight that the study of our elder writers has led to the introduction of a fresher style of description and a more varied music of verse than the public were accustomed to a few years ago.

The following description of the situation of the cell of the witch Orandra would have been worthy of Spenser himself:

Down in a gloomy valley thick with shade
Which two aspiring hanging rocks had made,
That shut out day, and barr'd the glorious sun
From prying into th' actions there done;

Set full of box, and cypress, poplar, yew,

And hateful elder that in thickets grew,

Amongst whose boughs the screech-owl and night-crow
Sadly recount their prophecies of woe,

Where leather-wingéd bats, that hate the light,
Fan the thick air, more sooty than the night.

The ground o'er-grown with weeds, and bushy shrubs,
Where milky hedgehogs nurse their prickly cubs:
And here and there a mandrake grows, that strikes
The hearers dead with their loud fatal shrieks;
Under whose spreading leaves the ugly toad,
The adder, and the snake make their abode :
Here dwelt Orandra.

Then follows a very striking description of the cell itself.

Her cell was hewn out in the marble rock,

By more than human art; she need not knock,