fubject of the second, the power of mufic over the paffions, which may perhaps be reckoned a blameable tautology; especially as these lines, Mufic the fierceft grief can charm, Mufic can soften pain to ease, And make despair and madness please ; are inferior, I am afraid, to the former on the fame fubjects, which contain beautiful and poetical perfonifications; Melancholy lifts her head, Inteftine war no more our paffions wage, It is obfervable, that this Ode of POPE, and the Alexander's Feast of Dryden, conclude with an epigram of four lines; a fpecies of wit as flagrantly unfuitable to the dignity, and as foreign to the nature, of the lyric, as it is of the epic muse. It is to be regretted, that Mr. Handel has not set to mufic the former, as well as the latter, of these celebrated odes, in which he has displayed the combined powers of verse and voice, to a wonderful degree. No poem indeed, affords fo much various matter for a composer to work upon; as Dryden has here introduced and expreffed all the greater paffions, and as the tranfitions from one to the other are fudden and impetuous. Of which we feel the effects, in the pathetic description of the fall of Darius, that immediately fucceeds the joyous praises of Bacchus. The symphony, and air particularly, that accompanies the four words, " fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen," is ftrangely moving *, and confifts of a few fimple * The mention of this pathetic air, reminds me of a story of the celebrated Lully, who having been one day accused of never fetting any thing to mufic, but the languid verfes of Quinault, was immediately animated with the reproach, and as it were seized with a kind of enthusiasm; he ran instantly to his harpfichord, and ftriking a few cords, fung in recitative these four lines in the Iphigenia of Racine, which are full of the strongest imagery, and are therefore much more difficult to exprefs in mufic, than verfes of mere fentiment, Un fimple and touching notes, without any of those intricate variations, and affected divifions, into which, in compliance with a vicious and vulgar tafte, this great master hath fometimes defcended. Even this piece of Handel, fo excellent on the whole, is not free from one or two blemishes of this fort, particularly in the air, "With ravished "ears," &c. THE moderns have perhaps practised no fpecies of poetry with fo little fuccefs, and with fuch indifputable inferiority to the Un prêtre environné d'une foule cruelle One of the company has often declared that they all thought themselves present at this dreadful spectacle, and that the notes with which Lully accompanied these words, erected the hair of their heads with horror. The opinion of Boileau concerning mufic is remarkable; he afferts, qu 'on ne peut jamais faire un la bon opera; parceque mufique ne fauroit narrer; que les paffions n'y peuvent etre peinte dans toute l'etenduë qu'elles demandent; que d'ailleurs elle ne fauroit souvent mettre en chant les expreffions vraiment fublimes et courageufes. ancients, ancients, as the ODE; which seems owing to the harshness and untuneableness of modern languages, abounding in monofyllables, and crowded with confonants. This particularly is the case of the English, whofe original is Teutonic, and which therefore, is not fo mufical as the Italian, the Spanish, or even the French, as not having fo great a quantity of words derived from the Latin. But the Latin language itself, as well as all others, must yield to the unparallelled sweetnefs and copioufnefs of the Greek. Tantò eft fermo græcus latino jucundior, fays Quintilian, ut noftri poetæ, quoties dulce carmen effe voluerunt, illorum id nominibus exornent *." * He gives some instances that are curious and worth attention. "Quid quod pleraque nos illa quafi mugiente literâ cludimus M, quâ nullum Græcè verbum cadit? At illi N jucundam et in fine præcipuè quafi tinnientem, illius loco ponunt, quæ eft apud nos rariffimè in claufulis. Quid quod fyllabæ noftræ in B literam et D innituntur? adeò afperè, ut plerique non antiquiffimorum quidem, fed tamen veterum mollire tentaverint, non folum averfa pro adverfis dicendo, fed et in præpofitione B literæ abfonam et ipfam S fubjiciendo." Apply these observations with proper alterations to the English tongue. Quintil. 1. xii. c. 10. What What line, even in the Italian poets, is so soft and mellifluous, as * Αλλ' αιει ζεφύροιο λιγυπνειονίας αλλας Or as, in the tender Bion, Αιαζω τον Αδωνιν, απωλείο καλά Αδωνις, to inftance in no more? If we caft a tranfient view over the moft celebrated of the modern lyrics, we may observe, that the stanza of Petrarch, which has been adopted by all his fucceffors, displeases the ear, by its tedious uniformity, and by the number of identical cadences. And indeed to speak truth, there appears to be little valuable in Petrarch, except the purity of his diction. His fentiments even of love, are metaphyfical and far fetched, neither is there much variety in his fubjects, or fancy in his method of treating them. Metaftafio is a much better lyric poet. When Boileau attempted an ode, he exhibited a glaring proof, of what will be more fully infisted on in the course of this Essay, that the writer whose grand, characteristical talent is * Odyf. 4. 565. fatyric |