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weakness, and her alarm serves to increase his dismay. But the struggle is now at an end; Norfrank is no longer master of himself; he feels, for the first time, the influence of Vertigo, that redoubtable divinity of the Alps. For the first time, he has the odious giant completely unveiled to his sight; he views him emerge, with the impetuosity of thunder, from the cloud which enveloped him, rush into the hollow of the precipice, and there suspend himself, with a furious and menacing aspect."

"In one hand, the Demon waves an immense shield, on the contour of which, a thousand and a thousand ghastly, fantastical shapes are depicted. It has a concave surface, and a magic polish, which reflects all the objects of nature in an unfaithful manner, by images unsteady and confused, and of an inordinate size. Scarcely had Norfrank cast a glance on this shield, when the mountains seemed to him to slide suddenly back, to the confines of the horizon, their summits to be upturned, and lengthened indefinitely in the regions of space. The celestial canopy (such is the dreadful illusion of his vision!) had fallen, instantaneously, to the level of the earth, and the earth had sprung up to that of the celestial canopy. He turns, and imagines that the whole universe turns also, with an accelerated motion, in a vortex that embraces the immensity of space."

"Overpowered by these horrible appearances, Norfrank has himself become an object of terror. His hair stands erect on his head; the sweat courses rapidly, in icy drops, down his face; his knees bend; he is about to fall, and, if he falls into the abyss, his forehead must dash and split, against the shield of the victorious Vertigo. But in this his mortal agony, one recollection survives, that of the adored object, who trembles in his arms; one thought still fills his mind-the danger of Myris. It is to save her, that he makes a last effort. He bends back, in order that she may slide gently to the ground, and the instant after, falls himself backward on the rock. Myris, distracted, tears the bandage from her head, and sees Norfrank motionless, with his eyes closed, and his forehead the colour of death. She swoons away at his side. Thus fall together, levelled by the same storm, the elm, with its vast umbrage, the pride of a solitary hill, and the vine which clung to its branches. But the gods had not entirely abandoned innocence. The arrows of Apollo had already put the monster of Schreckhorn to flight, and Norfrank had begun to recover his senses. Soon restored to himself, he opens his eyes, and the first object that he perceives is Myris, lying inanimate on the rock, like the lily, that droops, when severed, by the scythe, from the maternal stem.

He rises upon one knee, and, with his hands uplifted to hea

ven, addresses a fervent prayer to the god of day. His suppli cations are heard; Myris revives; he takes her once more in his arms; but another prodigy suspends his enterprize. Apollo does not rest satisfied, with having put the god of Vertigo to flight. He is apprehensive, that his protégé, from some remains of debility, may be unable to achieve the dangerous pass in safety. The rays of the god penetrate, and loosen, in an instant, some enormous masses of snow and ice. They are quickly detached from the mountain, roll down, tumble, with a tremendous noise, into the abyss, which Norfrank was preparing to traverse for the third time, and fill it up entirely. After the fresh alarm, which this extraordinary phenomenon occasions, the four travellers are reunited, and succeed in reaching the peak of the Virgin.

It must be acknowledged, that a creation like the foregoing, is sufficient to give character to an entire work, and to entitle the author to a distinguished place on Parnassus. I could wish it were compatible with my limits to quote the picture of the god of winter, to whom Mr. Baggessen assigns a throne, higher than all the glaciers of the Alps. There are, in this description, traits which another poet might, perhaps, have imagined, at the sight or recollection, of these vast and mountainous solitudes of ice; but the following, for example, is one, which could be conceived only in the head of a northern bard, conscious of his strength, and despising the opinion which poets, born in milder climates, entertain of their hyperborean brethren, and of themselves."From the empyrean of his inaccessible palaces, the god hears with pity the blasphemies of effeminate poets, and the murmurs of degenerate nations, who are ignorant of, or who outrage his divinity. Solemn, austere, an enemy to petulant mirth, it is he that inspires mortals with the composure necessary for sublime meditations, and helps them to triumph over the illusions and ebriety of the senses, before which all elevation of soul, and vigour of thought disappear. If he has no particular gifts of his own, to bestow on the earth, he watches over the preservation of those, which it receives from the other gods. Oftentimes, often indeed, he prevents nature from falling into a destructive languor, and rescues the innumerable germs of life, from the consuming fire of pestilence, and the ravages of putridity. The inhabitants of Olympus recognize and venerate his power. Urania visits him frequently, in the serenity of his nights. Apollo himself respects him, and blesses, with his choicest inspirations, those only, whose intellect the austere divinity has purified, and strengthened."

The translator of the poem, in his preliminary reflections, very

justly extols the whole of this magnificent description of Winter, and, with equal propriety, compares the fiction of the god of Vertigo to the most celebrated, and, perhaps, the grandest, of all the fictions of modern poetry; that of the Giant Adamastor, in the Lusiad of Camoens. But it is time to say something of the discourse, prefixed to this translation of the Partheneid.

The first object of the translator, in this discourse, is to ascertain and characterize the department of composition, in which his author has written; to establish its fundamental laws, by making them harmonize, with the theory of the other departments. This was, undoubtedly, a point of some importance. The poem of the Partheneid is the third in succession of its kind: Louisa and Herman and Dorothea preceded it. Three brilliant and successful specimens consecrate, for the future, this species of epopee, which is neither the heroic nor the romantic, but which has a character of its own,-a distinguishing seal; and for which, in fine, a name should be devised, fitted to indicate that character. We have seen, moreover, that these poems owe their birth to the idyl, such as Gesner has given it, illustrated and ennobled by fictions, animated by a greater number of actors, and extended over a wider theatre. The translator does then but comply with the most natural analogy, when he proposes to denominate this new species of poem the idyllic.

In order to prove, that the discrimination is just and substantial, he analyzes rigorously, the established forms of poetic composition, and shows, without difficulty, that each of them applies to objects, from which result impressions and effects, quite different and distinct; but that, on the contrary, several of these forms approach near to, and resemble each other, by the impressions which they themselves produce. Hence he concludes, that the various kinds of poem should be distinguished and classed, rather according to the different impressions excited, than to the different forms established. He is sensible, that the full exposition of this consequence, would involve him in too long and intricate a discussion, and contents himself, therefore, with merely suggesting it as a principle, upon which might be built the theory of the kind of epopee, which he proposes to style idyllic. He adds, that it belongs to this kind of poetry, as its distinguishing characteristic, to represent man in a state of tranquillity, innocence, and simplicity, in which he enjoys freely, all the happiness of which his nature is practically susceptible, or as much, as the imagination can, without a gross violation of probability, suppose it capable of admitting. He acknowledges, that this notion would appear, at first view, to be the same as the one generally entertained of pastoral poetry; but he points out the diffe

rence, and demonstrates, that pastoral poetry is but a species of the idyllic genus, and not even the most noble or interesting species.

He traces all the peculiar elevation and interest of this genus, in some episodical parts of the four great epic poems, of which the principal end is not, certainly, to excite the same emotions as the idyl;-in the picture which Virgil draws, of the second existence of the virtuous in the shades of Elysium; in that which Tasso gives, of the flight of Herminia among the shepherds of the Jordan; in that of the isle of the Nereids, where Camoens conducts Gama; and in one, perhaps, superior to them all, that which Milton has traced of the terrestrial paradise, and of the loves of Adam and Eve. The more a general work, possesses of the dignity and interest of these episodical compositions, the nearer will it approach to the perfection, of which the idyllic poem is susceptible. But, without reaching this degree of perfection, the translator thinks the idyl sufficiently marked out and individuated, "by the absence of all factitious ills, of the torment of the angry passions, of the disquietudes of vanity, of all the wants which man has created for himself, and which so often destroy his relish for the goods of nature, and, particularly, by the absence of such vices and caprices, as would prevent him from being, or appearing, worthy of those goods."

This special character pervades the Louisa of M. Voss. It is somewhat more vague, or rather more mixed, in the Herman and Dorothea of Goëthe. The author of the reflections, gives a brief analysis of these two poems, and shows clearly, in what consists the difference between them. This analysis conducts him to that of the Partheneid. He dwells longer on the latter, and specifies what it has in common with the two others, and in what respects it differs from them. The use which Mr. Baggessen makes of mythological machinery is first explained, and then justified in an ingenious manner, and with sufficient force, perhaps, to satisfy every man, who adverts to the concessions which are required from reason, when transported into the regions of fancy. Either I am myself much mistaken, or the quotations I have made from the work, will support what I here advance.

The combination of epic with descriptive poetry, is another distinguishing peculiarity of the Partheneid. "Mr. Baggessen," says the translator," conceived the idea of his poem in the midst of the Helvetic Alps, in presence of the most admirable beauties of rural nature, and in all the vivacity of those emotions, which such a spectacle is calculated to awaken. What he felt, he wished to paint. He projected a poetical delineation of the grand objects

before him. Nothing more would seem likely to result from this scheme, than a descriptive poem; but our author was more happily inspired. He formed the design of grafting the pictures of nature upon the plan of an epopee,-of making the spots he wished to describe, the scene of a particular action, and of an action either suiting, or requiring the kind of description, he had in view."

Here the translator declares himself, decidedly in favour, of the admixture of a human action with descriptions, in preference to poetry merely descriptive. He does not suffer himself to be biassed, by the many brilliant and successful examples of the latter, which we have already in our possession; but investigates the principle of the pleasure they communicate, and argues justly, that it is far less forcible and pregnant, than in the other case. He proceeds to remark, and with much truth, that the objects and phenomena of nature have not, nor can they have, a real poetical character and interest; but only inasmuch as they bear some relation, some affinity to our internal feelings, and are capable of producing an association of ideas, compounded, in part, of what is personal to our nature.

I shall stop here, remarking only in conclusion, that the translator has executed his task, in a truly elegant and philosophical manner, and that (if I may judge of the impressions of others by my own) this volume will be found delightful, both to the fancy and the judgment.

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