drew from the English poets who preceded him.
[29] l. 7. _Johnson’s tomes_--Lives of the Poets.
[30] l. 3. _More learn’d_--It is well known that, with the exception
of Chaucer, Johnson knew little of our early obsolete poetry. Mr T.
Warton, in this his ingenious and learned work, shews us the _prima
stamina_ of an infinite number of those poetic flowers which adorn
the juvenilia of Milton’s muse. The style of Mr T. Warton’s notes is
eloquent in the first degree. We often find passages whose oratoric
force and beauty equal the finest sentences of Dr Johnson.
[31] l. 2. _Kind record_--A Tour through England and Wales was
published in 1793, by Edward Clark, Esq. brother to the gentleman whom
the above Impromptu addresses. Mr E. Clark’s volume is adorned with
aquatinta drawings. Lichfield is described there, and very flattering
mention made of the Author of this Miscellany.
[32] Mr Repton took the view from the drawing-room window, in the
Bishop’s Palace at Lichfield, the home of the author from her earliest
youth.
[33] l. 10. _Mild Penates_--The Penates, or Lares, are the household
gods. There is a beautiful hymn to them in Mr Southey’s Miscellany.
[34] l. 11. _White plumes_--It is mentioned by the historians, that
in the field of Agincourt, the white plumes of the king’s helmet were
always seen waving in the front of the battle.
[35] l. 4. _Cressy’s thundering field_--Cannon were first used by the
English at the battle of Cressy.
[36] l. 9. _Fierce hyena_--Cooler reflection, and a long experience
of the mischiefs resulting from the sanguinary system which this
government has unwarned pursued through the last 14 years, have
justified this Poet’s representation of Henry the Fifth’s conduct in
invading France, and convinced me that the deprecation in JOAN of ARC
of monarchical ambition and rapacity, under that proud and specious
term _Military Glory_, proceeded from benevolence to the Human race,
and from a spirit of justice too firm to be warped by the vanity of
national enthusiasm.--ANNA SEWARD, _Sept. 1807_.
[37] l. 1. _Dubious omens_--According to the records of Lewis Owen, the
year 1349 was distinguished by the first appearance of the pestilence
in Wales, and by the birth of OWEN GLENDOUR. Hollingshed relates the
marvellous tale of his father’s horses, being found that night in their
stables, standing up to the middle in blood. The Bard, IOLO GOCH,
mentions a comet, which marked the great deeds of Glendour, when he was
in the meridian of his glory.--_See Mr Pennant’s Tour._
[38] l. 8. _Death on his pale horse_--Isaiah.
[39] l. 14. _Richard’s reign_--Richard the Second.
[40] l. 11. _Imperious Henry’s_--Henry the Fourth.
[41] l. 2. _Love-devoted Vale_--_Vaucluse_, the celebrated valley near
Avignon, in which Petrarch composed his beautiful sonnets to Laura.
[42] l. 3. _Din’s Brinna’s cone_--In 1390, Castel Dinas-Brân, now a
bare ruin, was inhabited by the lovely Lady MIFANWY VECHAN, of the
house of Tudor Trevor. She was beloved by the BARD HOEL. _See_ _Mr
Pennant’s Tour_, adorned by a pleasing translation in English verse,
of one of Hoel’s poems in her praise, and complaining of her coldness.
The ruins of Castel Dinas-Brân, are on a conoid mountain of laborious
access. It rises in the midst of Llangollen Valley.
[43] l. 11. _Eglwyseg rocks_--_Rocks of the Eagles._ They are opposite
Castel Dinas-Brân. The Rev. Mr Roberts of Dinbren asserts, that the
word _Eglwyseg_, has that interpretation. Mr Pennant derives it from
the name of a gentleman, to whose memory the neighbouring column was
erected; though, in another part of his Tour, he mentions Leland’s
testimony, that a pair of eagles built annually in the Eglwyseg
rocks, and that a person was let down in a basket to take the young,
with another basket over his head, to protect him from the fury of
the parent-birds. This tradition favours Mr Roberts’ etymology. That
Gentleman has lately added largely to his paternal house, situated
on a noble mountain in Llangollen Valley. The house stands near its
craggy summit, and looks as if it had been scooped out of the rocks.
A very narrow valley, containing two sloping copses, and a few bright
little fields, with a woody lane winding between them, divides Mr
Roberts’ mountain from the opposite elevation of Castel Dinas-Brân.
The south-east front of the house looks immediately into this narrow
valley; the barren, and very singular Eglwyseg rocks on the left, and
Castel Dinas-Brân in front. Between the base of the latter, and the
sloping foot of his own mountain, Mr R. has the bird’s-eye prospect
of Llangollen Town, and a part of the Vale.--The author of this Poem,
is indebted to the friendly hospitality of Mr and Mrs ROBERTS, for an
opportunity of contemplating the beauties of their own scene, and of
the celebrated Valley of Llangollen.
[44] l. 3. _Peerless twain_--Right Honourable Lady ELEANOR BUTLER, and
Miss PONSONBY, now seventeen years resident in Llangollen Vale, and
whose guest the author had the honour to be during several delightful
days of Summer.
[45] l. 11. _Minute Lyceum_--The Library, fitted up in the Gothic
taste, the painted windows of that form. In the elliptic arch of
the door, there is a prismatic lantern of variously tinted glass,
containing two large lamps with their reflectors. The light they
shed resembles that of a volcano, gloomily glaring. Opposite, on the
chimney-piece, a couple of small lamps, in marble reservoirs, assist
the prismatic lantern to supply the place of candles, by a light more
consonant to the style of the apartment, the pictures it contains of
absent friends, and to its aërial music.
[46] l. 6. _Evening-diamond_--Evening star.
[47] These lines with inverted commas, are from Thomson’s Castle of
Indolence.
[48] l. 5. _Valle Crucis_--The picturesque ruins of Valle Crucis Abbey,
one of the most striking objects in this Valley. They are particularly
described by Mr PENNANT, and there are engravings of them in his Tour.
[49] l. 19. _Grim Idol_--Superstition.
[50] l. 8. _There Fletcher_--Mrs Fletcher of Gwernheyled--Gwernheyled,
means _Sunny Alders_.
[51] l. 1. _Sister Apperlys_--The two Miss Apperlys.
[52] l. 3. _Friendly Price_--Mrs Parry Price, late of that
neighbourhood.
[53] l. 7. _Cunliffe’s eyes_--The Lady of Sir Foster Cunliffe, Baronet.
[54] l. 15. _Hayman’s song_--Watkin Hayman, Esq.
[55] l. 11. _Albion’s long distinguish’d fanes_--Westminster.
[56] l. 13. _Sainted Maid_--Mrs Mary Middleton’s monument by
Roubilliac, in the Chancel at Wrexham.
[57] l. 22. _Randal’s Harp_--Mr Randal, organist of Wrexham; an
exquisite performer on the pedal harp. He has been blind from his
infancy.
[58] _Hoyle Lake_, the real name, better suited to verse than its
recently assumed appellation, _High Lake_.
[59] l. 3. _Cheerful Dome_--The large and handsome Hotel, built in the
year 1792, by Sir John Stanley, and which converts these pleasant Downs
into a commodious sea-bathing place.
[60] l. 14. _Of Deva_--Deva, the classical name of the Dee.
“Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.”
_Milton’s Lycidas._
Also Prior, in Henry and Emma.
“Him, great in peace and wealth, fair Deva knows.”
Milton probably uses the epithet _wizard_, in allusion to the rites
and mysteries performed on the banks of the Deva, or Dee. In Spencer,
the river is made the haunt of magicians. That fine poetic scholar and
critic, the late Mr T. Warton, observes, in his Edition of Milton’s
lesser Poems, that Merlin used to visit old Timon in a green valley, at
the foot of the mountain, Rauran-Vaur, in Merionethshire, from which
mountain the river Deva springs. _See_ _Fairy Queen_, B. 1. C. ix. V.
4. In Drayton, an old poet, with whose works Milton was familiar, it is
styled “the hallowed, the holy, the ominous flood.”
[61] l. 10. _Moel-y-Fammau_--The first word spoken as one syllable, as
if spelt _Mole_. The name signifies in Welch, _Mother of Mountains_. It
is seen in the Hoyle-Lake prospect, behind the Flintshire Hills, and
considerably higher than any of them.
[62] l. 8. _Amber Isle_--The Sand Island, six miles long, and four
broad, which lying in the sea, a mile from shore, forms the Lake; and
breaking the force of the tides, constitutes the safety of that Lake as
an harbour and bathing-place.
[63] l. 91. _These Downs_--King William encamped his army on the Hoyle
Lake Downs, before he took shipping from thence, on his victorious
expedition to Ireland.
[64] Doctor Hicks’ literal prose translation in his _Thesaurus
Septentrionalis_, of this ancient Norse Poem, is here given to
gratify the reader’s curiosity; also to show that it is used only as
an outline, and that the following Poem is a bold Paraphrase, not
a Translation. The expressions in Dr Hicks’ prose, have a vulgar
familiarity, injurious to the sublimity of the original conception.
A close translation, in English verse, will be found in a valuable
collection of Runic Odes, by the ingenious and learned Mr Mathias.
After his example, some slight changes have been made in the names, for
their better accommodation to the verse.
_Hervor._--“Awake, Argantyr!--Hervor, the daughter of thee and
Sauferlama, doth awaken thee! Give me out of the tomb the hardened
sword which the dwarfs made for Sauferlama.”
“Hervardur, Hiarvardur, Hrani,--with helmet and coat of mail, and a
sharp sword, with shield and accoutrements, and a bloody spear, I
awaken you all under the roots of trees. “Are the sons of Andgrym, who
delighted in mischief, now become dust and ashes?--Can none of Eyvor’s
sons speak to me out of the habitations of the dead?”--
“Hervardur, Hiarvardur, Hrani!--so may you all be within your ribs, as
a thing that is hanged up to putrify among insects, unless you cause
Argantyr to deliver up to me the Sword which the Dwarfs made, and the
glorious belt!”
[65] l. 17. _Semblance cold_--According to the Gothic Mythology,
the spirits of Heroes slept in their bodies, which did not decay.
Putrefaction, therefore, was the heaviest curse that could be denounced.
“Never shall enquirer come
“To break my iron-sleep again,
“Till Lok has burst his ten-fold chain.”
_Gray’s Descent of Odin, from the_
_Norse Poetry._
“_Argantyr._--Daughter Hervor, full of spells to raise the dead, why
dost thou call so?--wilt thou run on to thine own mischief?--Thou art
mad, and out of thy senses, who art desperately resolved to awaken dead
men!”--
“I was not buried either by father or other friends--Two which lived
after me, got Turfing, one of whom is now possessor thereof.”
“_Hervor._--Thou dost not tell the truth--so let Odin hide thee in the
tomb, as thou hast got Turfing by thee. Art thou unwilling, Argantyr,
to give an inheritance to thy only child?”
“_Argantyr._--I will tell thee, Hervor, what is to come to pass.
This Turfing will, if thou dost believe me, destroy almost all thy
offspring.--Thou shalt have a son, and many think that he will be
called _Hydrec_ by the people.”
“_Hervor._--I do, by enchantments, make that the dead shall never know
peace, or rest, unless thou deliver up to me Turfing.”
“_Argantyr._--Young maid, I say thou art of manlike courage, who dost
roam, about by night to tombs, with spear engraven by magical spells,
with helmet and coat of mail, before the door of our hall.”
“_Hervor._--I took thee for a brave man before I found out your halls.
Give me out of the tomb the workmanship of the Dwarfs, which hates all
coats of mail.--It is not good for thee to hide it.”
“_Argantyr._--The death of Hialmor lies beneath my shoulders.--It is
all wrapt up in fire. I know no maid of any country that dares take
this Sword in hand.”
“_Hervor._--I shall take and keep it in my hand, if I may obtain it.--I
do not think the fires will burn that play about the sight of deceased
men.”
“_Argantyr._--O, conceited Hervor, thou art mad! Rather than thou
shouldest in an instant fall into the fire, I will give thee the Sword,
O, young maid, and not hide it from thee.”
“_Hervor._--Thou dost well, offspring of heroes, that thou dost give me
the Sword out of the tomb.--I am now better pleased, O Prince, to have
it, than if I had got all Norway.”
[66] l. 8 _Bickering_--
“And from about him fierce effusion roll’d
“Of smoke, and _bickering flame_, and sparkles dire.”
_Milton’s Par. Lost_, B. vi. line 765.
“_Argantyr._--False Woman!--thou dost not understand that thou speakest
foolishly of that in which thou dost rejoice. Turfing shall, if thou
wilt believe me, destroy all thy offspring.”
“_Hervor._--I must go to my seamen,--here I have no mind to stay any
longer.--Little do I care, O royal friend, what my sons hereafter
quarrel about.”
“_Argantyr._--Take and keep Hialmor’s bane, which thou shalt long have
and enjoy.--Touch not the edges, there is poison on both of them!--It
is a most cruel devourer of men!”
“Farewell, daughter.--I do quickly give thee the twelve men’s deaths,
if thou canst believe with might and courage,--and all the goods that
Andgrym’s sons have left behind them.”
“_Hervor._--Dwell, all of you, safe in the tombs! I must be gone and
hasten hence, for I seem to be in a place where fire burns about me.”
[67] Since deceased.
[68] Since Mrs Thos. White.
[69] l. 9 _Davidean friendship_--Alluding to the friendship of David
and Jonathan.
[70] l. 16 _Virtuous man_--Colonel Cane, Lady Blakiston’s second
husband, a gentleman of distinguished excellence of heart and urbanity
of manners.
[71] This Ode was written on receiving intelligence of Admiral Nelson’s
victory on the Nile.
[72] l. 5. _Party-prejudice_--Alluding to Dr Johnson’s unjust biography
of Milton.
[73] Sister to the Marchioness of Donegall.
[74] I have slightly altered this Sonnet since the Collection was last
published.--ANNA SEWARD.
[75] Afterwards Mrs Edgeworth.
[76] This, and the following Sonnet, have been slightly altered by
their Author since the last edition.
[77] l. 7 _Shaftsbury plain’d_--Of the Poets, who were contemporary
with Lord Shaftsbury, Dryden, Cowley, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Gay,
Addison, &c., in the period which this age styles Augustan, his
lordship speaks with sovereign scorn. In his Characteristics he,
without making any exception, labours to prove, that the compositions
of Dryden are uniformly contemptible. See his advice to an author in
the second volume of the Characteristics, and also his miscellaneous
reflections, in the third volume; “If,” says he to the authors, “your
Poets are still to be Mr Bayeses, and your prose writers Sir Rogers,
without offering at a better manner, must it follow that the manner is
good, and the wit genuine?”
Thus it is that the jealousy people of literary fame often feel of
each other, produces the foolish and impolitic desire of decrying the
general pretensions of the Age to Genius.--Their narrow selfishness
leads them to betray the common cause which is their true interest to
support. They persuade the credulous many, with whom envy of superior
talents increases their willingne to despise, that imagination is
become enervated; designing, however, to have it understood, that in
their individual instance exists the sole exception,
“For they would each bestride the narrow world
“Like a Colossus.”
[78] l. 5 _Hours of prime_--“While day arises, that sweet hour of
prime.”--_Milton’s Par. Lost._
[79] This Sonnet is not a Translation or Paraphrase, but is written in
the character of Petrarch, and in imitation of his manner.
[80] This Sonnet was written in an apartment of the west front of
the Bishop’s Palace at Lichfield, inhabited by the Author from her
thirteenth year. It looks upon the Cathedral-Area, a green lawn
encircled by prebendal houses, which are white from being rough-cast.
[81] l. 13. _Dropt with gold_--Kingcups.
[82] This Sonnet was written when the balloon enthusiasm was at its
height.
[83] Petra, and Fossilia, are personifications of the first and last
division of the fossil kingdom. The author of this beautiful Poem
supposes the gnomes to be spirits of the mine performing the behests
of Petra and Fossilia, as the sylphs, gnomes, salamanders, &c. appear
as handmaids of the Nymph of Botany in that exquisite sport of
imagination, the Botanic Garden.
[84] l. 14. _For they do_--The particle _for_ is used in the same sense
with _because_, by Shakespear, and Beaumont and Fletcher.
“But she, and I, were creatures innocent,
“Lov’d _for_ we _did_
_Bea. and Fle. Two Noble Kinsmen._
“---- Nor must you think
“I will your serious and great business scant
“_For_ she is with me.”--_Othello_.
“They’re jealous _for_ they’re jealous.”--_Othello_.
[85] l. 12. _Odorous_--Milton, in the Par. Lost, gives the lengthened
and harmonious accent to that word, rather than the short, and common
one:
----“the bright consummate flower
“Spirit odorous breathes.”
[86] l. 14. _Along the gloom_--“It fadeth at the crowing of the
cock.”--_Hamlet._
[87] l. 14. _Sun-bright zone_--Ensigns of Apollo’s Priesthood.
[88] l. 9. _Young hind_--“Vitas hinnuleo me similis Chloe.”
_Horace._
[89] In Lichfield Cathedral the funeral rites are performed early in
the morning.
[90] The above Sonnet was addressed to a friend, who had fastidiously
despised, because he did not think it exquisite sculpture, the statue
of a water-nymph in Mr Knight’s singular, and beautiful cold bath at
Downton Castle near Ludlow. It rises amidst a rotunda, formed by rocks,
and covered with shells and fossils, in the highest elevation of that
mountainous and romantic scene.
[91] Then of Sutton Coldfield.
[92] When this Sonnet was written, the subject of it had languished
three years beneath repeated paralytic strokes, which had greatly
enfeebled his limbs, and impaired his understanding. Contrary to
all expectation he survived three more years subject, through their
progress, to the same frequent and dreadful attacks, though in their
intervals he was apparently free from pain or sickness.
[93] When Johnson’s idolaters are hard pressed concerning his injustice
in those fallacious though able pages;--when they are reminded that
he there tells us the perusal of Milton’s Paradise Lost is a task,
and never a pleasure;--reminded also of his avowed contempt of that
exquisite Poem, the Lycidas;--of his declaration that Dryden’s absurd
Ode on the death of Mrs Anne Killegrew, written in Cowley’s worst
manner, is the noblest Ode in this language;--of his disdain of Gray
as a lyric poet; of the superior respect he pays to Yalden, Blackmore,
and Pomfret;--When these things are urged, his adorers seek to acquit
him of wilful misrepresentation by alledging that he wanted ear for
lyric numbers, and taste for the higher graces of Poetry:--but it is
impossible so to believe, when we recollect that even his prose abounds
with poetic efflorescence, metaphoric conception, and harmonious
cadence, which in the highest degree adorn it, without diminishing its
strength. We must look for the source of his injustice in the envy
of his temper. When Garrick was named a candidate for admission into
the Literary Club, Dr Johnson told Mr Thrale he would black-ball him.
“Who, Sir? Mr Garrick! Companion of your youth! your acknowledged
friend!”--“Why, Sir, I love my little David better than any, or all of
his flatterers love him; but surely we ought to sit in a society like
ours, ’unelbow’d by a Gamester, Pimp, or Player.” See Supplement to Dr
Johnson’s Letters, published by Mrs Piozzi.
[94] l. 1. _Youthful Milton lay_--This romantic circumstance of our
great Poet’s juvenility was inserted, as a well known fact, in one of
the General Evening Posts in the Spring 1789, and it was there supposed
to have formed the first impulse of his Italian journey.
[95] In jargon, like the following, copied from a Review, are works
of Genius perpetually criticised in our public prints:--“Passion
has not sufficient coolness to pause for metaphor, nor has metaphor
ardour enough to keep pace with passion.”--Nothing can be less true.
Metaphoric strength of expression will burst even from vulgar and
illiterate minds when they are agitated. It is a natural effort of
roused sensibility in every gradation, from unlettered simplicity to
the highest refinement. Passion has no occasion to pause for metaphors,
they rush upon the mind which it has heated. Similies, it is true, are
not natural to strong emotion. They are the result of spirits that are
calm, and at leisure to compare.
[96] l. 6. _Storied galleries_--“And storied windows richly dight.”
_Il Penseroso._
[97] This Sonnet was written on having read a description of the
Killarney scenery immediately after that of the Vale of Vaucluse,
uncultivated and comparatively desert as the latter has been through
more than the present century.
[98] l. 2 _Green lustre_--The lustre of the brightest of the stars
always appeared to me of a green hue; and they are so described by
Ossian.
[99] l. 1 _Luxurious taste_--The Romans, in general, made no regular
meal till the business of the day was over. They considered a mid-day
feast as a mark of indolence and luxury.
[100] l. 1.--“_Diis miscent superis._ A manner of expression not
unusual amongst the Greeks and Latins, for any eminent degree of
happiness. Unless we adopt this explanation of the words, says Dacier,
we shall make Horace guilty of a manifest contradiction, since a few
lines farther he tells his patron, that his suffrage, not the ivy crown
is that, which will exalt him to the skies. The judicious emendation
of the late Bishop of Chichester, who for _Me doctarum_, reads _Te
doctarum_, removes all objection; and adds beauty to the Ode by the
fine compliment it contains to Mæcenas.”--_Brom. Hor._
[101] l. 7. _Neptune’s fane_--Horace alludes to the custom of the Roman
mariners after a shipwreck--that of suspending their garments, which
had been drenched in the storm, in the temple of Neptune, together with
a votive tablet, on which the circumstances of the danger and escape,
were painted.
[102] He had been twice Consul; was of Brutus’ and Cassius’ party, but
went over to Augustus, who received him with kind respect. However
he revolted from him, persuaded by the friends of Marc Antony, that
the battle of Actium would decree the Empire to that General. The
event, so contrary, brought Munatius back to the feet of Augustus,
but he was not received with former kindness, nor did he deserve it,
and retired, chagrined, to his fine seat at Tivoli, in the wood of
Tiburnus, so called from the neighbouring city, Tibur. There also,
and near the falls of Tivoli, described at full in Mr Gray’s letters,
Horace had a villa. The poet, perceiving the spirits of Munatius
dejected, writes this Ode to reconcile him to his destiny, and to
inspire him with delight in the beautiful scenery by which he was
surrounded; insinuating, that should Augustus banish him, which was
no improbable event, he ought not to despond, but to form his conduct
upon the spirited example of Teucer; who, together with his friends and
followers was banished his native city, Salamis, by his father, because
he had not revenged upon the Greeks the death of his brother Ajax.--The
disinterested design of this Ode, and the humane attention it pays to
a disgraced nobleman, are much to the poet’s honour, who was perhaps,
in general, more disposed to gratulate the powerful, than to sooth the
unfortunate.
[103] l. 1. p. 231. _Far-famed Rhodes_--The capital of an island of the
same name in the Mediterranean, and famous for the Colossal Statue.
[104] l. 2. p. 231. _Mitylene_--The chief city of Lesbos, praised by
Cicero for its advantageous situation, elegant buildings, and fertile
soil.
[105] l. 4. _Tawny Olive’s_--It was believed that Minerva presented the
seed of the olive-tree to the Athenians.
[106] l. 1. _Larissa_--A beautiful city, upon one of the hills in
Thessaly.