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in love by Armida, as Ulysses by Calypso; and two warriors re cover him from enchantment, as that hero in the Odyssey disenchants his companions, when he requires of Circe to restore them to their primitive forms.

Canto XVII. A catalogue is given of the Indian warriors, to whom are given the epithets of "espugnator delle citta" (ToλiToplos) and "domator de' cavalli" (inπodáμos), with others of the same import as those applied by Homer to his heroes. A youth is represented voyaging and watching the polar star, and other constellations, as Ulysses does when he sails from Calypso's island; though it must be allowed he appears in a less perilous state than that of the hero. Rinaldo receives a shield on which are displayed the valorous deeds of his ancestors---in which respect the poet evidently appears to have imitated Homer, Hesiod, and Virgil.

Canto XVIII. Rinaldo is warned to beware of the dangers of the enchanted grove; and desired to shun the sweet voices or songs of any persons that should accost him, as Ulysses is by Circe to beware of the Sirens.

He draws his sword to destroy the enchantress, as Ulysses does to prevent being transformed by the spells of Circe. The scalade of Jerusalem resembles in many respects the assault of the Greeks on Troy, in the Æneid. The effects of the battering ram are compared to a rock descending from a mountain and overwhelming every thing in its progress; and a simile of the same description is found in the Iliad. St. Michael appears to Godfrey, as Venus to Æneas, when Troy was taken. Like Neptune, Ugone undermines the walls, and Dudone, like Juno, administers arms to the combatants. Rinaldo breaks open the door of the temple (with a beam), as Hector does the gate of the Grecian camp..

The simile of the shepherd driving his flock to shelter is nearly the same as that of Homer, when he describes him foreseeing the coming of a storm and committing his fleecy charge to the covert of a rock.

The magician Ismeno in the 2d Canto of the poem certainly partakes of the qualities of Moris, in the 8th Eclogue of Virgil.

Che trar di sotto ai chiusi marmi
Puo corpo estinto-

Sæpe animas imis excire sepulcris.

I cannot help considering the flight of Erminia, in the beginning of the 7th Canto, as bearing a vivid resemblance to the

flight of Pompey the Great, after the battle of Pharsalia, as described by the masterly pen of Lucan.

It is perhaps to be lamented that both Tasso and Dante should have selected subjects of so bizarre a nature, for the display of so much grandeur of invention; but their choice must be excused when it is considered, that they were in perfect character with the age of comparative barbarism in which they lived. W. T. P. S.

NOTICE OF

THE ODES OF ANACREON OF TEOS, translated into English reasure by E. H. THURLOW, LORD THURlow.

We cannot say much in praise of this performance; but the example of a man of rank engaging in literary pursuits is in itself so satisfactory, that we ought not to criticise too severely. The attempt is sufficiently creditable, and therefore we are no more disposed to quarrel with Lord Thurlow for having given. us an indifferent translation of Anacreon, than with the Hon. George Lamb for having given us an indifferent translation of Catullus, or with Lord Leveson Gower for having made an unsuccessful attempt to render the most untranslatable of all poems. One merit, indeed, this version possesses, unknown to former ones; a freedom from meretricious additions. The error of interpolating thoughts and images of the translator's own, and of making a writer speak as if he belonged to a different age, is one in which the translators of the Elizabethan age, and those of the school of Dryden and Pope, however widely differing in other respects, equally agree. Our style of transla tion is infinitely improved since the downfall of the French school; we are, however, in some danger of falling into an opposite error, that of marring the beauty and ease of our versions by a too rigid adherence to the words of the original. Of the first-mentioned extreme, Cowley and T. Moore, in their translations of Anacreon, are flagrant instances; of the latter we know no example more striking than Lord Thurlow himself.

It is impossible to give the meaning of a poet without giving a little more than his words; Lord Thurlow, however, has not only not done this, but has retained in a great measure the Greek idioms; thus purchasing conciseness and partial fidelity at the expense of frequent obscurity and almost uniform harshness. For instance, in Ode xIx., of which he has given two different

versions :

The dark Earth drinks, and then the trees
Drink her, and then the flowing seas
Drink the wide air, and then the sun
Drinks up the sea, and, that being done,
The thirsty moon doth drink the sea.
What harm then. O companions, think,
That I myself delight to drink.

His study of obsolete words sometimes betrays him into uncouthness; as in Ode XXXIX.

with odorous oil

Myself I bathe, the Syrian spoil;

Withhold a girl, too, in my arms.—

The two best rendered are the twenty-eighth and the fiftyfirst ode; we shall extract the former, adding, however, that we had rather meet his Lordship as an original writer than as a translator, in spite of the unmerciful treatment which his politics procured for his poetry in the Edinburgh Review.

Best of Painters, hear my prayer,
Best of Painters, now prepare,
Master of the Rhodian art,
To paint the mistress of my heart:
Tho' she be absent, yet attend,
And paint from me my lovely
friend.

Paint me the hair in tender state,
The hair both black and delicate;
And, if art so far can dare,
Breathing odours thro' the air;
And paint me from the perfect
brow

The pure and ivory forehead now,
Only more holy, chaste, and fair,
O'ershaded by the violet hair.
For me the eyebrow neither part,
Nor wholly mingle by thy art;
But like herself the brows design,
Undiscernibly to join;

The circling eyelids black as night
Make for my divine delight;
And make the eye of living fire,
The soul and fountain of desire,

At once like arm'd Minerva's grey,
Shedding feminine dismay,
And wet, like beauty's queen above,
And trembling with inconstant
love.

Paint me the cheeks and arched nose,

Let milk be mingled with the rose; Paint me the lip, persuasion's throne,

And pouting to be kiss'd anon. Paint me the delicate chin below, And let the neck like marble glow, Stately, and fair as nascent day,. And every charm around it play. And, painter, what may yet remain,

Stole her in robe of purple grain, Through which some part of her may shine

Of all, that's lovely and divine! Enough-her very self I see;' Picture, perhaps, thou'lt speak to

me

' Sic corrige, nostro periculo: libri impressi "her see," pessundat

sensu.

231

ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS OF

CLAUDIAN.

PART III. [Continued from No. LIV.]

Est talis, ut si in recentiorum numerum ponas, sit haud dubie primus, et veterum ultimus.

M. Ant, Sabellicus Hist.

Ea fuit Claudiani virtus, is spiritus, ut in quamcunque partem se verteret, summus et elegans existeret poëta: ita est aliquando festivus, ita concinnus, ita elegans, nihil ut fieri possit argutius; ita vero aliquando insurgit, et artificiosa verborum conclusione carmen explicat, nihil ut sit magnificentius.

Franc. Asulaius Præf. Ed. Claudiani Aldin.

Est suavis, luculentus, et inoffensi stili, sententiis acutus, in narrando subtilis et enucleatus, rerum quoque prope omnium peritia, nullius quod quidem præclarum solidumque poëtam absolvat, inscius.

Joach. Vadianus Lib. de Poetica.'

In the two former parts of this article we have given our view of the poetical character of Claudian, as a whole, and of the merits and defects of his matter, his style, and his arrangement. We shall conclude with an abstract of the poet's life, and a brief sketch of his several poems.

Claudius Claudianus, a native of Alexandria, (not, as some have supposed, a Spaniard or Florentine,) appears to have been born about the year 365 or 370, and to have florished as a poet principally during the last ten years of the fourth, and the first ten of the fifth, century. Whether he was the son of a celebrated professor of the name is disputed; it is certain, however, that he received a very superior education, from the extent and variety of knowledge which his works contain; that he was of a good family, and that he was early introduced to the notice of distinguished men; being admitted about A. D. 395 into the train of Stilicho, whose movements he accompanied during the five years preceding the latter's first consulship, and under whom

1 We have extracted the above from the 281 testimonia which the exemplary diligence of Barthius has collected in the preface to his edition, as specimens of the estimation in which Claudian was formerly held by scholars. Among his authorities are some names which associate oddly with the men in us, as Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Lope de Vega.

he acquired those political predilections and antipathies which afterwards distinguished him. Through the good offices of his patron, he rose high in the favor of the brother Emperors, Arcadius and Honorius, by whom he was honored with the military tribuneship (at that time a mere title of honor, bestowed, like modern knighthood, indiscriminately on all kinds of merit) as well as with many other distinctions. To the kindness of the Princess Serena, the wife of Stilicho, he was likewise indebted for the hand of a rich and noble lady, whom he married on his return to his native city. Of the succeeding portion of his life, until the disgrace and death of Stilicho, we can only gather in general that it was passed in literary pursuits, in the society and correspondence of the noble and learned of his time, among whom may be numbered (besides the Princess Serena, who appears to have been a patroness of the polite arts) Olybrius, Gennadius, both orators and writers, the prætorian præfect Hadrian, and the philosophic consul Mallius; and in the composition and recitation of those historical poems which raised him to the head of the poets of his time, and procured him the honor of a statue in the forum of Trajan. On the fall of Stilicho his fortune probably changed. Whether we are to refer to this period the persecution which (in retaliation for some reported sarcasms) he experienced from his former patron, the præfect Hadrian, and which, by his own account, involved him in poverty and danger,' is uncertain; as indeed the whole of his latter history. Some suppose that he sought a retreat at the court of the East, which he had so often treated with ridicule; that he florished there as a Greek poet, under Theodosius II., and there ended his days. On the question of his Christianity we have spoken in a former Number, though with more hesitation than was necessary; the designation of him by Orosius as "paganus pervicacissimus" is sufficient testimony in the negative; and the epigram on James the Master of Horse (Carm. lxxvii.) is a proof that the assailant of Eutropius, whose powers were peculiarly adapted to grave satire, wanted as little the will as the ability, could the attempt have been safely made, to paint in lively colors the superstition, the absurd dissensions, and the grossly corrupt morals of the Christians of his age.*

'It would appear however from the poet's epistle to Hadrian (Carm, xxxix. 24.) " caris spoliamur amicis: Hunc tormenta necant; hic undique truditur exul:" that the main cause of the prefect's resentment was the poet's connexion with some adverse party.

2 We need scarcely say that the above notice is compiled almost

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