honour of chivalry, I will not leave out the combat: and that it may appear the more glorious, all the court of Bohemia shall be present at it, from the princes of the blood, to the very footmen. But still one difficulty remains, which is, that our common theatres are not large enough for it. There must be one erected on purpose, (answered the Knight;) and, in a word, rather than leave out the combat, the play had better be acted in a field or plain.' * 21. Some to conceit alone their taste confine, And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at every line.† Simplicity, with elegance and propriety, is the perfection of style in every composition. Let us, on this occasion, compare two passages from Theocritus and Ovid upon the same subject. The Cyclops, in the former, addresses Galatea with comparisons, natural, obvious, and drawn from his situation. Ω λευκα * Continuation of Hist. of Don Quixote, b. iii. ch. 10. † Ver. 289. * Λέξεως δε αρετη, σαφή και μη ταπεινην εἶναι. Aristot. Poet. c. 22. Ω λευκα Γαλάλεια, τι τον φιλεον ̓ ἀποβάλλη; These simple and pastoral images were the most proper that could occur to a Cyclops, and to an inhabitant of Sicily. Ovid could not restrain the luxuriancy of his genius, on the same occasion, from wandering into an endless variety of flowery and unappropriated similitudes, and equally applicable to any other person or place. Candidior nivei folio, Galatea, ligustri ; Mollior et cygni plumis, et lacte coacto ;. There are seven more lines of comparison. 22. False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, * Idyll. Kuxλ. + Metam. xiii. 789. ‡ Ver. 311. The The nauseous affectation of expressing every thing pompously and poetically, is no where more visible than in a poem lately published, entitled AMYNTOR and THEODORA. The following instance may be alleged among many others. Amyntor having a pathetic tale to discover, being choaked with sorrow, and at a loss for utterance, uses these ornamental and unnatural images: O could I steal From Harmony her softest warbled strain Il ne Voltaire has given a comprehensive rule with respect to every species of composition : faut rechercher, ni les pensées, ni les tours, ni les expressions, et que l'art, dans tous les grands ouvrages, est de bien raisonner, sans trop faire d'argument; de bien peindre, sans vouloir tout peindre; d'émouvoir, sans vouloir toujours exciter les passions.† 23. Some * Cant. 3. ver. 92. Oeuvres, tom. iii. page 332. 23. Some by old words to fame have made pretence.* QUINTILIAN'S advice on this subject is as follows. Cum sint autem verba propria, ficta, translata; propriis dignitatem dat antiquitas. Namque et sanctiorem, et magis admirabilem reddunt orationem, quibus non quilibet fuit usurus: eoque ornamento acerrimi judicii Virgilius unice est usus. Olli enim, et quianam, et mis, et pone, pellucent, et aspergunt illam, quæ etiam in picturis est gratissima, vetustatis inimitabilem arti auctoritatem. Sed utendum modo, nec ex ultimis tenebris repetenda." 24. Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze," In the next line it "whispers through the trees." Trite and unvaried rhymes offend us; not only as they are destitute of the grace of novelty, but as they imply carelessness in the poet, who adopts what he finds ready made to his hands. We have not many compositions where NEW and uncommon rhymes are introduced. One or two writers, * Ver. 324... Inst. Orat. lib. vii. c. 3. ‡ Ver. 350. writers, however, I cannot forbear mentioning, who have been studious of this beauty. They are Parnell; Pitt, in his Translation of Vida; West, in his Pindar; Thomson, in the Castle of Indolence; and the author of an elegant Ode To SUMMER, published in a Miscellany entitled the UNION.* 25. A needless Alexandrine ends the song.t Dryden was the first who introduced the frequent use of this measure into our English heroic; for we do not ever find it even in the longer works of Sandys, nor in Waller. Dryden has often used it very happily, and it gives a complete harmony to many of his triplets. By scrupulously avoiding it, POPE has fallen into an unpleasing and tiresome monotony in his Iliad. 25. And praise the easy vigour of a line, Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join. FENTON, * Edinburgh, 1753, 12mo. p. 81. ↑ Ver. 356. + Ver. 360. |