to their passion for being admired: in order to which, they must endeavour to make themselves the objects of a reasonable and lasting admiration. This is not to be hoped for from beauty, or dress, or fashion, but from those inward ornaments which are not to be defaced by time or sickness, and which appear most amiable to those who are most acquainted with them. C. No. 74. FRIDAY, MAY 25. -Pendent opera interrupta VIRG. En. iv. 88. The works unfinished and neglected lie. IN my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of Chevy-Chase; I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and shew that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets: for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the Eneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the poet (whoever he was) proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature. Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must, however, beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it, where not only the thought, but the language, is majestic, and the numbers sonorous;1 at least, the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will see in several of the following quotations. What can be greater than either the thought or the expres sion in that stanza? To drive the deer with hound and horn Earl Piercy took his way: 2 The child may rue that is unborn The hunting of that day! This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles, which took their rise from this quarrel of the two Earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets. Audiet pugnas vitio parentum Rara juventus. HOR. Od. 2. 1, 1. v. 23. Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes, Shall read with grief the story of their times. What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas? 1V. D. Blackwell's Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer. Second edition, Svo., 1736, sect. v. pp. 59, 60.—C. Found only in the modern poem, except the third line.-G. The stout Earl of Northumberland His pleasure in the Scottish woods With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, Who knew full well, in time of need, The hounds ran swiftly thro' the woods The nimble deer to take, And with their cries the hills and dales An echo shrill did make.' -Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum: GEORG. 3, v. 43. Citharon loudly calls me to my way; Thy hounds, Taygetus, open and pursue the prey: Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses' breed; DRYDEN. Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, His men in armour bright; Full twenty hundred Scottish spears, All marching in our sight; All men of pleasant Tividale, Fast by the river Tweed, &c. The country of the Scotch warriors, described in these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil. Adversi campo apparent, hastasque reductis Protendunt longè dextris; et spicula vibrant; 1 The greater part of these three fine stanzas belongs to the modern poet.-G. Quique altum Præneste viri, quique arva Gabinæ En. 11, v. 605, v. 582, 712. Advancing in a line, they couch their spears— With those who plough Saturnia's Gabine land: DRYDEN. But to proceed: Earl Douglas, on a milk-white steed, Most like a Baron bold, Rode foremost of the company, Whose armour shone like gold.1 Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, &c. Our English archers bent their bows, At the first flight of arrows sent, They clos'd full fast on ev'ry side, 1 V. No. 70, note on this stanza, p. 207.-G. With that there came an arrow keen Out of an English bow, Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart A deep and deadly blow.' Eneas was wounded after the same manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley. Has inter voces, media inter talia verba, En. 12, v. 318. Thus while he spake, unmindful of defence, But of all the descriptive parts of this song, there are none more beautiful than the four following stanzas, which have a great force and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such an one as would have shined in Homer or in Virgil. So thus did both these nobles die, He had a bow bent in his hand, Against Sir Hugh Montgomery So right his shaft he set, The gray-goose wing, that was thereon, In his heart-blood was wet. Here, the modern poet, has improved upon his original, both in incident and expression.-G. |