Jam afraid it will be Poets, who meditate the lofty theme,— of little use to

offer

advice to Dramarie' To win the crouded theatre's esteem, Writer's unless they At this perennial fount the secret seek, will be humbly content

to confine their futuTo bid the passions, not the fancy, speak: Labour's to the closer,

for the huge size ofu, No languid apathy, in pomp of phrase,

2420

modern Theatres Here lulls the anguish tragick woe should raise ; threaren the exering

tion of Genius both His clew the mazy labour can control,
in the Author and
Actor. Acolossal
Stentor only can fill
the

And wind through all the labyrinth of the soul.

In other strains than his, who could endure 2426

eye eandearin The rugged plough describ'd, the field's manure;
Fabincks of such
The humbler duties of the shepherd's toil,
vast capacity. The

play of countenance And the coarse cares that tame a stubborn soil ?1
fine inflexions of
voice, delicate
express of tone
gebrure and visage
must be lost on 20
Stage where the
rallgor and bear
proportioned figuie

As hardest blocks the Phidian chissels choose, 2430
The rudest subjects charm by Maro's muse:
He, like the lord of all th’extended land,
Superior, and unstain'd, alone can stand.

Beneath the master's eye the wain moves on,

to reduced by distance The hinds appear to sweat, the steer to groan; to the diminuriveness

of

Canto Y. He who Brisk Dryades, light fawns, and satyrs lead, 2436

will be the most

While swarthy Pan inspires the jocund reed; useful Performer. The People may be spectators thro

* See the Georgicks, passim.

microscope bur chey can be no longer auditors ofthe AbunDrama, for there is no expedient for increasing sounds to uningsrived

crevolt to the comwell supposed antique me panuing wiless indeed

of our Actors on Stilts, envelloping their heads in a casque with a huge face to it, thro which with the aid of a pipe they may bellows so asto become sudible. What Poet will now be induced to mispend his genius in constructing pieces which to more than half the benches must appear little better man Finexplicable dumb show? Adieu Shakspeare, adieu M's Siddons, and our her favourites : your reign is over, you be : the dominion of Pantomime is begun, y de pembered, but you will be heard no and the Muses may go to the Hospital,—

Abundant Ceres smiles, the vales rejoice,
And every rural god obeys his voice.

While not unseen the playful heifer feeds* 2440
On the fresh herbage of the flowery meads,
Then nature's sting the lordly bull constrains

To drive his bellowing rival o'er the plains:
The green-ey'd monster brutal breasts can move,
Το rage, like Shakspeare's Moor, with jealous love.
Hark! how the neighbouring caves are heard to

moan

2446

With the deep thunder of his smother'd groan!
Behold his spurning heel, his chest's broad size,
Like stars with blood bedimm'd, his glowing eyes!
We share the sturdy combat from afar,

And own the terrours of the horny war.

With dewlaps gor'd, and lacerated sides,

2450

Remote, his shame the vanquish'd champion hides ;

• Pascitur in magnâ silvâ formosa juvenca:

Illi alternantes multâ vi prœlia miscent
Vulneribus crebris;-. Geor. iii. 219.

Dd

Yet

– Behold the picture of ancient Rome in London, -jam migravit ab aure voluptas

Omnis ad incertos oculos et gaudia vana.

Govent Garden and the new DruryLane can only be considered 20 magnificent Genotaphs for the interment of the rarional Drama.

Yet one last look, indignant casts around,

2454

To view the mistress lost, and hateful ground;
Then, stern receding from the hard-fought plain,
Threatens fierce strife, with mightier force again.
Or, when the mute prone creatures of the soil,
By plagues subdued, resign their useful toil,
His plaintive lays their secret woes reveal,
And what they cannot speak, our breasts must feel.

Majestick bard! as golden skies bestow

2460

A mellow tinge on humble vales below,
Warm'd by thy lyre, where'er its rays descend,
Richness and radiance on the themes attend: 2465
From Tityrus, beneath the beech reclin'd,
To Turnus shrinking from the death design'd,
Some kindred muse breathes in each tuneful line,
And the verse glows with all the assisting nine.3

Now,

How exquisite must have been the taste of the poet, who could order the Æneid to be destroyed after his death, as thinking it too imperfect to do him honour!-One of the greatest obligations posterity owes to the memory of Augustus, is his not suffering the suppression of that divine poem.

Now, near two thousand years since Virgil's birth, The sun, grown older, has illumin'd earth, 2471

very

And

Virgil is supposed to have employed seven years in the composition of his Georgicks, the most perfect poem in the opinion of many eminent criticks extant in any language. The whole work divided into four books, consists of little more than two thousand lines; but so many beauties were perhaps never before or since comprised within so small a compass.

To a mere English reader, the SEASONS of Thomson, though a work clearly original, will convey a better idea of the Georgicks, than any translation I have met with. Thomson, in this most beautiful poem, (one of the greatest ornaments of his country,) dips his pencil in the same glowing colours with which the Mantuan has painted the face of rural nature. We can perceive that he often casts his eye upon the Roman poet; not with the servile timidity of an imitator, but like a master, able to think for himself, to select, combine, and create by the vigour of his own genius.

In the style of these two Raffaelles of description, there is very perceptible difference. Thomson, though not more rich, is more luxuriant than Virgil; more sententious, diffusive, and abounding much more in epithets. The Briton perhaps might not have turned his thoughts to the Seasons, had not the Georgicks preceded; yet even allowing to the latter the advantage of the Latin language, it is not easy to decide which production deserves the preference: for my own part, I am commonly inclined to give it to that which I have read latest. Thomson has sometimes weak expletive lines, Virgil never. Transposition of words now and then, though but rarely, constitutes poetry

And brightly his inspiring beams has shed
O'er genius living, and th' illustrious dead,
Yet still supreme, unequall'd, and alone,

Sits the great Mantuan on the epick throne.* 2475

TIBUL

in the Seasons; the structure of Virgil's verse cannot be altered without injuring the harmony or the image. Thomson's episodes are very justly commended; yet the Pastor Aristaus in the fourth Georgick is superior to any of them.

The declamatory style which loads Thomson's tragedies, mixes well in a poem of such length and expansion as the Seasons. The mind, tranquilized by the scenes his muse has raised, allows him to assume the dignity of an instructor, and to indulge in whatever mood happens to have the ascendency. We may find perhaps upon the whole more eloquence in the modern, and in the ancient more energy.

The author does not mean that as an epick poet Virgil was superior to Homer, who wrote so many ages before him; but that he is superior to such as have appeared since his nativity. The number is not considerable, and of these our Milton is unquestionably the greatest. Among many other slanders, Voltaire describes him as "celui qui a gaté l'enfer et le diable du Tasse, &c." The Frenchman understood Milton but little better than he did Shakspeare. It is remarkable that in the fastidious censures of his noble Venetian Pococuranté in Candide, he praises only the three episodical books of Virgil, the second, fourth, and sixth, where there is more of relation than action; because he has himself attempted to follow these models in his Henriade: wishing always to persuade his countrymen that it is the most finished epick poem the wit of man ever produced, in any language.

There