CANTO V. SHE said the pitying audience melt in tears, 5 Say, why are beauties praised and honor'd most, The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast? Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford? 11 Why angels call'd, and angel-like adored? Why round our coaches crowd the white-gloved beaux? 15 Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows? duce, Or who would learn one earthly thing of use? 19 25 To patch, nay, ogle, might become a saint, Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; crack; Heroes' and heroines' shouts confusedly rise, 40 No common weapons in their hands are found; Like gods they fight, nor dread a mortal wound. So when bold Homer makes the gods en 45 gage, And heavenly breasts with human passions rage; 'Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms; And all Olympus rings with loud alarms: 35 So spoke the dame. A verse frequently repeated in Homer after a speech : So spoke, and all the heroes applauded. 45 So when bold Homer. Il. xx.-P. Jove's thunder roars, heaven trembles all around, Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps re sound: 50 Earth shakes her nodding towers, the ground gives way, And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day! Triumphant Umbriel on a sconce's height Clapp'd his glad wings, and sat to view the fight: Propp'd on their bodkin spears, the sprites survey The growing combat, or assist the fray. 56 While through the press enraged Thalestris flies, And scatters death around from both her eyes, One died in metaphor, and one in song. O cruel nymph! a living death I bear,' Cried Dapperwit, and sunk beside his chair. The expiring swan, and as he sings he dies. 60 65 53 Triumphant Umbrie!. Minerva, in like manner, during the battle of Ulysses with the suitors in the Odyssey, perches on a beam of the roof to behold it.-P. 64 Those eyes are made so killing! The absurd words of a song in the opera of Camilla.' The tide of fashion ran in favor of the Italian opera; the tide of wit, satire, and national feeling against it fashion triumphed; and the opera, as unnatural as ever, still holds up its head, in despite of perpetual bankruptcy, and in defiance of all the caprices of noble patronage. 65 Thus on Maander's flowery margin lies. Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis, Ad vada Mæandri concinit albus olor. Ovid. Ep. vii. 1. When bold sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down, Chloe stepp'd in, and kill'd him with a frown: She smiled to see the doughty hero slain, But, at her smile, the beau revived again. 70 75 Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air, Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows, 85 same, 71 Now Jove, &c. Homer, Il. vii. and Virg. Æn. xii. 75 See fierce Belinda. Mock fights have been favorite trials of poetry, since the Battle of the Frogs and Mice:' thus Boileau has his skirmish in the bookseller's shop; Swift, his Battle of the Books;' Garth, his massacre of the physicians, in the Dispensary.' 6 89 The same, his ancient personage to deck. In imitation of the progress of Agamemnon's sceptre in Homer, Il. ii. 95 Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew; pain. But see how oft ambitious aims are cross'd, 100 105 The lock, obtain'd with guilt, and kept with pain, In every place is sought, but sought in vain: 110 106 Roar'd for the handkerchief. Pope here seems to ridicule the fine incident of Desdemona's handkerchief; but Shakspeare had not yet attained the veneration which has since immortalised his name: the taste of the higher ranks was infected with the stiff frivolities of the French stage: Shakspeare was fashionably pronounced a clever barbarian; and the man must have been a daring defier of high-born opinion, who asserted his simple, true, and infinite superiority over all the strainings of French magniloquence. The incident belongs to the Italian novel; but the agonising power with which it is wrought, to the great poet alone. |