While the charmed reader with thy thought complies
And views thy Rosamond with Henry's eyes,
are evidently borrowed from those of Boileau,
En vain contre ‘Le Cid’ un ministre se ligue;
Tout Paris pour Chimene a les yeux de Rodrigue.
* * * * *
The expression, ‘nemorumque noctem’ occurring in one of Gray's Latin
odes, has been repeatedly found fault with—yet Virgil has ‘medio
nimborum in nocte.’
* * * * *
{579} Selden observes of Henry VIII, that he was a king with a pope in
his belly.
* * * * *
In the ‘Nubes’ of Aristophanes, there are several Greek verses in
_rhyme_.
* * * * *
Of the ten tragedies which are attributed to Seneca, (the only Roman
tragedies extant,) nine are on Greek subjects.
* * * * *
Ariosto says of one of his heroes, that, in the heat of combat, not
perceiving that he was a dead man, he continued to fight valiantly,
dead as he was.
Il pover' huomo che non s'en era accorto,
Andava combattendo, e era morto.
* * * * *
The author of ‘La Maniere de bien Penser’ speaks of a French divine
who, to prove that young persons sometimes die before old ones, cited
the text, ‘Prœcucurrit citius Petro Johannes et venit primus ad
monumentum.’
* * * * *
There is no passage among all the writings of antiquity more sublime
than these lines of Silius Italicus. The words are addressed to a
young man of Capua, who proposed to assassinate Hannibal at a banquet.
Fallis te mensas inter quod credis inermem,
Tot bellis quæsita viro, tot cœdibus armat
Majestas eterna ducem: si admoveris ora
Cannas et Trebium ante oculos, Trasymenaque busta,
Et Pauli stare ingentum miraberis umbram.
* * * * *
Giace l'alta Cartago: à pena i segni
De l'alte sui ruine il lido serba:
Muoino le città, muoino i regni;
Copre i fasti e le pompe arena et herba:
E l'huom d'esser mortal per che si sdegni.
These lines of Tasso are a curious specimen of literary robbery—being
made up entirely of passages from Lucan and Sulspicius. Lucan says of
Troy
Jam tota teguntur
Pergama dumetis: etiam perire ruinæ:
and Sulspicius in a letter to Cicero says of Megara, Egina, Corinth,
&c.—“Hem! nos homunculi indignamur si quis nostrum interiit, quorum
vita brevior esse debet, cum uno loco tot oppidorum cadavera projecta
jaceant.”
* * * * *
An epigram upon the subject of Francois de Bassompiere being released
from the Bastille upon the death of Richelieu, is a strange mixture of
lofty thought and puerile conceit.
Enfin dans l'arriere saison
La fortune d'Armand s'accorde avec la mienne:
France, Je sors de ma prison
Quand son ame sort de la sienne.
The line, “France, Je sors de ma prison,” is the anagram of Francois
de Bassompiere.
* * * * *
The epigrams of the Greek Anthology are characterized more by
_náiveté_ than point. They are for the most part insipid.
* * * * *
Longinus calls pompous and inflated thoughts, “reveries of
Jupiter”—insomnia Jovis.
* * * * *
A French writer of celebrity dedicated a book to Richelieu in terms of
the most blasphemous flattery. But being disappointed in his
expectations, he suppressed all his praises in a second edition, and
re-dedicated his volume “_á Jesus Christ_.”
* * * * *
The following inscription intended for the Louvre, possesses both
simplicity and dignity:
Pande fores populis, sublimis Lupara: non est
Terrarum imperio dignior ulla domus.
* * * * *
Under a fine painting of St. Bruno in solitude, some Italian wrote
these words, “Egli è vivo, e parlerebbe se non osservasse la rigola
del silentio.” Malherbe has taken the hint in his epigram upon a
picture of Saint Catherine.
* * * * *
A fine sample of _galimatias_ is to be found in an epigram of Miguel
de Cervantes:
Van muerte tan escondida,
Que no te sienta venir;
Porque el plazer del morir
No me torne à dar la vida.
* * * * *
Quintillian mentions a pedant who taught obscurity, and who was wont
to say to his scholars, “This is excellent—I do not understand it
myself.”
* * * * *
An Italian metaphysician to disprove that greatness of mind is
proportioned to the size of the skull, argues thus: “Non sano, che la
mente è il centro del capo; e il centro non cresce per la grandezza
del circolo.”
* * * * *
A horse is often seen on ancient sepulchral monuments. Caylus quotes a
passage from Passeri, “de animæ transvectione,” implying that the
horse designates the passage of the soul to Elysium.
* * * * *
The Satyre Menippée of the French is, in prose, the exact counterpart
of Hudibras in rhyme.
* * * * *
A remarkable instance of concord of sound and sense is to be seen in
the following stanza by M. Anton. Flaminius:
Ast amans charæ thalamum puellæ
Deserit flens, et tibi verba dicit
Aspera amplexu teneræ cupito a—
—vulsus amicæ.
* * * * *
Voltaire's ignorance of antiquity is laughable. In his Essay on
Tragedy, prefixed to Brutus, he actually boasts of having introduced
the Roman senate on the stage in red mantles. “The Greeks,” as he
asserts, “font paraitre ses acteurs (tragic) sur des especes
d'echasses, le visage couvert d'un masque qui exprime la douleur d'un
coté et la joye de l'autre!” The only circumstance upon which he could
possibly have founded such an accusation is, that in the _new comedy_
masks were worn with one eyebrow drawn up and the other down, to
denote a busy-body or inquisitive medler.
* * * * *
Several ancient tragedies, viz: Eumenides, Philoctetes, and Ædipus et
Colonos, besides many pieces of Euripides, have a happy and enlivening
termination.
* * * * *
The only historical tragedies by Grecian authors {580} were The
Capture of Miletus by Phrynicus and the Persians of Æschylus.
* * * * *
The foundation of all the erroneous opinions on the subject of the old
Greek comedy (Voltaire's opinion particularly) may be found in the
comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, in Plutarch.
* * * * *
Schlegel says justly, that Harlequin and Pulcinello descend in a
direct line from the buffoons of the ancient Romans. On Greek vases
are seen also dresses like theirs—long breeches and waistcoats with
arms, articles worn by neither Greeks nor Romans except upon the
stage. At present Zanni is one of the names of Harlequin, and Sannio
in the Latin farces was a buffoon who had a shaven head, and a dress
patched together of all colors.
* * * * *