“’Twas now, when flowery lawns the prospect made,
And flowing brooks beneath a forest shade,
A lowing heifer, loveliest of the herd,
Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls prepared
Their arméd heads for light, by fate of war to prove
The victor worthy of the fair one’s love;
Unthought presage of what met next my view;
For soon the shady scene withdrew.
And now, for woods, and fields, and springing flowers,
Behold a town arise, bulwarked with walls and lofty towers;
Two rival armies all the plain o’erspread,
Each in battalia ranged, and shining arms arrayed
With eagle eyes beholding both from far,
Namur, the price and mistress of the war.”
The “Birth of the Muse” is a miserable fiction. One good line it has
which was borrowed from Dryden. The concluding verses are these:—
“This said, no more remained. The ethereal host
Again impatient crowd the crystal coast.
The father now, within his spacious hands,
Encompassed all the mingled mass of seas and lands;
And, having heaved aloft the ponderous sphere,
He launched the world to float in ambient air.”
Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Arabella Hunt seems to be the best;
his Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, however, had some lines which Pope had in
his mind when he wrote his own. His imitations of Horace are feebly
paraphrastical, and the additions which he makes are of little value. He
sometimes retains what were more properly omitted, as when he talks of
_vervain_ and _gums_ to propitiate Venus.
Of his Translations, the “Satire of Juvenal” was written very early, and
may therefore be forgiven, though it had not the massiness and vigour of
the original. In all his versions strength and sprightliness are
wanting; his “Hymn to Venus,” from Homer, is perhaps the best. His lines
are weakened with expletives, and his rhymes are frequently imperfect.
His petty poems are seldom worth the cost of criticism; sometimes the
thoughts are false and sometimes common. In his verses on Lady Gethin,
the latter part is in imitation of Dryden’s ode on Mrs. Killigrew; and
“Doris,” that has been so lavishly flattered by Steele, has indeed some
lively stanzas, but the expression might be mended, and the most striking
part of the character had been already shown in “Love for Love.” His
“Art of Pleasing” is founded on a vulgar, but perhaps impracticable
principle, and the staleness of the sense is not concealed by any novelty
of illustration or elegance of diction. This tissue of poetry, from
which he seems to have hoped a lasting name, is totally neglected, and
known only as it is appended to his plays.
While comedy or while tragedy is regarded, his plays are likely to be
read; but, except what relates to the stage, I know not that he has ever
written a stanza that is sung, or a couplet that is quoted. The general
character of his “Miscellanies” is that they show little wit and little
virtue. Yet to him it must be confessed that we are indebted for the
connection of a national error, and for the cure of our Pindaric madness.
He first taught the English writers that Pindar’s odes were regular; and
though certainly he had not the lire requisite for the higher species of
lyric poetry, he has shown us that enthusiasm has its rules, and that in
mere confusion there is neither grace nor greatness.