SUCH dark decrees have letter'd Bigots penn'd, Yet feiz'd that honor'd name, the Poet's Friend.] Of the feveral. authors who have written on Epic Poetry, many of the most celebrated are more likely to confound and deprefs, than to enlighten and exalt the young Poetical Student. The Poetics of Scaliger, which are little more than a laboured panegyric of Virgil, would lead him to regard the Æneid as the only standard of perfection; and the more elegant and accomplished Vida inculcates the fame pufillanimous leffon, though in fpirited and harmonious verfe.. Unus hic ingenio præftanti gentis Achiva Aureus immortale fonans.. ftupet ipfa pavetque,. Ergo ipfum ante alios animo venerare Maronem, VIDA. See how the Grecian Bards, at distance thrown, 120 E'en Greece turns pale and trembles at his fame, Hence, facred Virgil from thy foul adore Above the reft, and to thy utmost power Purfue the glorious paths he ftruck before. PITT's Translation. and has A Critic, who lately rofe to great eminence in our own country, endeavoured by a more fingular method to damp the ardour of inventive Genius, and to annihilate the hopes of all who would afpire to the praife of originality in this higher fpecies of poetical compofition. He has attempted to establish a Triumvirate in the Epic world, with a perpetuity of dominion. Every reader who is converfant with modern criticifm will perceive, that I allude to the following paffage in the famous Differtation on the fixth Book of Virgil:- Juft as Virgil riHe found Hovalled Homer, fo Milton emulated both of them. mer poffeffed of the province of Morality; Virgil of Politics nothing left for him but that of Religion. This he seized, as aspiring to share with them in the government of the Poetic world: and, by means of the fuperior dignity of his fubject, hath gotten to the head of that Triumvirate, which took fo many ages in forming. These are the three fpecies of the Epic Poem; for its largeft fphere is human action, which can be confidered but in a moral, political, or religious view: and These the three Makers; for each of their Poems was struck out at a heat, and came to perfection from its firft effay. Here then the grand fcene was clofed, and all farther improvements of the Epic at an end." ; I apprehend that few critical remarks contain more abfurdity (to use the favourite expreffion of the author I have quoted) than the preceding lines. Surely Milton is himfelf a proof that human action is not the largeft fphere of the Epic Poem; and as to Virgil, his moft paffionate admirers must allow, that in fubject and design he is much less of an original than Camoens or Lucan. But fuch a critical ftatute of limitation, if I may call it fo, is not lefs pernicious than abfurd. To diffigure the fphere of Imagination with thefe capricious and arbitrary zones is an injury to science. Such Criticism, instead of giving fpirit 7 and and energy to the laudable ambition of a youthful Poet, can only lead him to start like Macbeth at unreal mockery, and to exclaim, when he is invited by Genius to the banquet, "The Table's full." Thus, at their banquets, fabling Greeks rehearse The fancied origin of facred Verfe.] For this fable, fuch as it is, I am indebted to a paffage in Athenæus, which the curious reader may find in the close of that fanciful and entertaining compiler, page 701 of Cafaubon's edition. NOTE III. Ver. 207. Why did the Epic Mufe's filent lyre Shrink from those feats that fummon'd all her fire?] I have ventured to fuppofe that Greece produced no worthy fucceffor of Homer, and that her exploits against the Perfians were not celebrated by any Poet in a manner suitable to so sublime a subject ;—yet an author named Charilus is faid to have recorded thofe triumphs of his country in verfe, and to have pleased the Athenians fo highly as to obtain from them a public and pecuniary reward. He is fuppofed to have been a cotemporary of the historian Herodotus. But from the general filence of the more early Greek writers concerning the merit of this Poet, we may, I think, very fairly conjecture that his compofitions were not many degrees fuperior to those of his unfortunate namefake, who frequented the court of Alexander the Great, and is faid to have fung the exploits of his Sovereign, on the curious conditions of receiving a piece of gold for every good verfe, and a box on the ear for every bad one. The old Scholiaft on Horace, who has preserved this idle ftory, concludes it by saying, that the miferable Bard was beat to death in confequence of his contract. Some eminent modern Critics have indeed attempted to vindicate the reputation of the more early Chærilus, who is fuppofed to be confounded, both by Horace himself, and afterwards by Scaliger, with the Chærilus rewarded by Alexander. Voffius *, in particular, appears a warm advocate in his behalf, and appeals to various fragments of the ancient Bard * De Hiftoricis Græcis. R preferved preferved by Aristotle, Strabo, and others, and to the teftimony of Plutarch in his favour. But on confulting the fragments he has referred to, they rather fortify than remove my conjecture. The fcrap preferved by Aristotle in his Rhetoric is only half a verse, and quoted without any commendation of its author. The two citations in Strabo amount to little more. The curious reader may alfo find in Athenæus an Epitaph. on Sardanapalus, attributed to this Poet; who is mentioned by the fame author as peculiarly addicted to the groffer exceffes of the table.--Let us now return to that Cherilus whom Horace has " damn'd to everlasting fame." The judicious and elegant Roman Satirist seems remarkably unjuft, in paying a compliment to the poetical judgment of his patron Auguftus, at the expence of the Macedonian hero. Alexander appears to have poffeffed much more poetical spirit, and a higher relish for poetry, than the cold-blooded Octavius. It is peculiarly unfair, to urge his liberality to a poor Poet as a proof that he wanted critical difcernment, when he had himself fo thoroughly vindicated the delicacy of his taste, by the enthusiastic Bon-mot, that he had rather be the Therfites of Homer than the Achilles of Charilus. is When grave Boffi by Syftem's ftudied laws The Grecian Bard's ideal picture draws.] Though Boffu is called “the best explainer of Ariftotle, and one of the most learned and judicious of modern critics," by a writer for whofe opinions I have much esteem, I cannot help thinking that his celebrated Effay on Epic Poetry very ill calculated either to guide or to infpirit a young Poet. The abfurdity of his advice concerning the mode of forming the fable, by chufing a moral, inventing the incidents, and then searching history for names to fuit them, has been fufficiently expofed and as to his leading idea, concerning the defign of Homer in the compofition of the Iliad and Odyffey, I apprehend moft poetical readers muft feel that he is probably mistaken; for it is a conjectural point, and placed beyond the poffibility of decifion. Perhaps few individuals differ more from each other in their modes of thinking, by the force of education and of national manners, than a modern French Critic and an early Poet of Greece; yet the former will often pretend, with the most decifive air, : to to lay open the fenforium of an ancient Bard, and to count every link în the chain of his ideas. Thofe who are moft acquainted with the movements of imagination, will acknowledge the fteps of this airy power to be so light and evanescent in their nature, that perhaps a Poet himself, in a few years after finishing his work, might be utterly unable to recollect the exact train of thought, or the various minute occurrences which led him to the general defign, or directed him in the particular parts of his poem. But, in fpite of the interval of many hundred centuries, the decifive magic of criticism can call up all the fhadows of departed thought that ever existed in his brain, and display, with a most astonishing clearness, the precise state of his mind in the moment of compofition. "Homere," fays Boffu, "* voyoit les Grecs pour qui il écrivoit, diviféz en autant d'etats qu'ils avoient de villes confiderables: chacune faifoit un corps à part & avoit fa forme de gouvernement independamment de toutes les autres. Et toute-fois ces etats differens etoient fouvent obligéz de fe reünir comme en un feul corps contre leurs ennemis communs. Voila fans doute deux fortes de gouvernemens bien differens, pour etre commodement reunis en un corps de morale, & en un feul poëme. "Le poëte en a donc fait deux fables feparées. L'une eft pour toute la Grece reünie en un feul corps, mais compofée de parties independantes les unes des autres, comme elles etoient en effet ; & l'autre eft pour chaque etat particulier, tels qu'ils etoient pendant la paix, fans ce premier rapport & fans la neceffité de fe reünir. "Homere a donc pris pour le fond de fa fable, cette grande verité, que la Mefintelligence des princes ruine leurs propres etats." On the Odyssey Boffu remarks, "Que la verité qui fert de fond à cette fiction, & qui avec elle compofe la fable, eft, que l'absence d'une perfonne hors de chez foi, ou qui n'a point l'œil à ce qui s'y fait, y caufe de grands defordres +." On the mature confideration of these two moral axioms, the Critic supposes the fublime Bard to have begun his respective Poems; for Homer, continues he, "‡n'avoit n'avoit point d'autre deffein que de former Livre i. chap. 8. + Livre i. chap. 10. Livre i. chap. 13. agreablement |