II. 2. In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, The Muse has broke the twilight gloom 56 To cheer the shivering Native's dull abode. And oft, beneath the odorous shade Of Chili's boundless forests laid, She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, 60 Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves. 66 Luciferique pavent letalia tela dici.” Ausonii Mosell. 269.-WAKEFIELD. To these Mr. Mitford adds a quotation from Euripides, Phoenissæ, 171. Εωοις όμοια φλεγεθων Ver. 54. In climes beyond the solar road.] Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations; its connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it.-[See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welch Fragments, the Lapland and American Songs.]-GRAY. "Extra anni solisque vias-." Virg. Æn. vi. 797. "Tutta lontana dal camin del sole." Petrarch, Canzon. 2.-GRAY. "Out of the solar walk, and heaven's high way." Dryden's Thenod. August. stanza 12. "Far as the solar walk and milky way." Pope's Essay on Man, i. 102. Ver. 61. In loose numbers wildly sweet.] The loose texture of this verse is most happily analogous to the meaning. It reminds one of Milton's character of Shakspeare. "Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child, WAKEFIELD. Glory pursue, and generous shame, Th' unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame. II. 3. Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep, 66 Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep, Fields, that cool Ilissus laves, Or where Mæander's amber waves In lingering labyrinths creep, 70 How do your tuneful echoes languish, Mute, but to the voice of anguish ! Ver. 64. Glory pursue, and generous shame.] This use of the verb plural after the first substantive is in Pindar's manner, Nem. x. 91. Pyth. iv. 318 Hom. II. E. 774.-Wakefield. Ver. 66. Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep.] Progress of poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surry, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there; Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them: but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since.-GRAY. Ver. 69. Or where Mæander's amber waves.] "There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream." Par. Reg. iii. 288. Par, Lost, iii. 359. "Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream." Which is from Callimachus: το δ', ώστ' αλεκτρινον, ύδωρ E aμapwv avεovɛ. Hymn. in Cer. 29.-WAKEField. Ver. 70. In lingering labyrinths creep.] Mincius." "Tardis ubi flexibus errat Virg. Georg. iii. 14.-WAKEFIELD. Ver. 71. How do your tuneful echoes languish.] In the Where each old poetic mountain Murmur'd deep a solemn sound: Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour, Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains. Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power, 75 And coward Vice, that revels in her chains. 80 When Latium had her lofty spirit lost, They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast. III. 1. Far from the sun and summer-gale, a In thy green lap was Nature's Darling a laid, Quarterly Review, vol. xi. p. 314. a resemblance is traced between these lines and the following from Addison's letter to Lord Halifax: "Poetic fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground; See Letter II. Ver. 80. And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.] "Servitude, that hugs her chain." Ode on the Installation.-Wakefield. The position here laid down, Dr. Johnson says, is false. "In the time of Dante and Petrarch, from whom we derive our first school of poetry, Italy was overrun by tyrant power' and 'coward vice:' nor was our state much better when we first borrowed the Italian arts." a Shakspeare, What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, To him the mighty mother did unveil 85 Ver. 83. Far from the sun and summer-gale.] An ingenious person, who sent Mr. Gray his remarks anonymously on this and the following Ode soon after they were published, gives this stanza and the following a very just and well-expressed eulogy: "A poet is never more conciliating than when he praises favourite predecessors in his art. Milton is not more the pride than Shakspeare the love of their country: it is therefore equally judicious to diffuse a tenderness and a grace through the praise of Shakspeare, as to extol in a strain more elevated and sonorous the boundless soarings of Milton's epic imagination." The critic has here well noted the beauty of contrast which results from the two descriptions; yet it is further to be observed, to the honour of our Poet's judgment, that the tenderness and grace in the former does not prevent it from strongly characterizing the three capital perfections of Shakspeare's genius; and when he describes his power of exciting terror, (a species of the sublime,) he ceases to be diffuse, and becomes, as he ought to be, concise and energetical.-MASON. Ver. 84. In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid.] "The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.” Milton's Song on May Morning.-GRAY. Nature's Darling occurs in Cleveland's Poems, p. 314. "Here lies, within this stony shade, Nature's Darling; whom she made Her fairest model, her brief story, In him heaping all her glory." Ver. 86. To him the mighty mother did unveil Her awful face.] Wicked memory brings into the mind the Queen of the Dunces, and destroys all the pleasure of the description by an unlucky contrast. "The mighty mother, and her son, who brings The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings." Pope's Dunciad, i. 1. Her awful face: the dauntless child Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil'd. "This pencil take," she said, "whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year: Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy! Of horror that, and thrilling fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears." III. 2. Nor second He, that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, The secrets of th' abyss to spy, 90 95 He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time: He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, "A veil of fogs dilates her awful face." b Milton. 100 Idem, i. 218.-WAKEFIELD. Ver. 98. He passed the flaming bounds of place and time.] Flammantia monia mundi." Lucret. i. 74.-GRAY. Ver. 99. The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze.] "6 For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels, and above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone. This was the appearance of the glory of the Lord.-Ezek. i. 20, 26, 28.GRAY. Ver. 101. He saw; but, blasted with excess of light.] "Oculos ausus attollere contra." Lucret.-WAKEFIELD. |