I shall take another opportunity to consider the other parts of this old
song.
Part Two.
--_Pendent opera interrupta_.
VIRG., _AEn._ iv. 88.
The works unfinished and neglected lie.
In my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those
beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of
"Chevy-Chase;" I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular,
and show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and
poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the
greatest of the ancient poets: for which reason I shall quote several
passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we
meet in several passages of the "AEneid;" not that I would infer from
thence that the poet, whoever he was, proposed to himself any imitation
of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the
same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature.
Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of
wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but
it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have
warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is
only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are
the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must, however, beg leave
to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in
the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of
this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only
the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers sonorous; at
least the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use
of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will see in several of the
following quotations.
What can be greater than either the thought or the expression in that
stanza,
To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Percy took his way;
The child may rue that is unborn
The hunting of that day!
This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring
upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the
battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in
future battles which took their rise from this quarrel of the two earls,
is wonderfully beautiful and conformable to the way of thinking among the
ancient poets.
_Audiet pugnas vitio parentum_.
_ Rara juventus_.
HOR., _Od._ i. 2, 23.
Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes,
Shall read, with grief, the story of their times.
What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic
simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas?--
The stout Earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer's days to take.
With fifteen hundred bowmen bold,
All chosen men of might,
Who knew full well, in time of need,
To aim their shafts aright.
The hounds ran swiftly through the woods
The nimble deer to take,
And with their cries the hills and dales
An echo shrill did make.
--_Vocat ingenti clamore Cithaeron_,
_Taygetique canes_, _domitrixque Epidaurus equorum_:
_Et vox assensu memorum ingeminata remugit_.
VIRG., _Georg._ iii. 43.
Cithaeron loudly calls me to my way:
Thy hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue their prey:
High Epidaurus urges on my speed,
Famed for his hills, and for his horses' breed:
From hills and dales the cheerful cries rebound:
For Echo hunts along, and propagates the sound.