THE BOSTON REVIEW, FOR AUGUST, 1809. Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quae commutanda, quae eximenda, arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari mePLIN. rentur. ART. 6. The Columbiad, a poem, by Joel Barlow. Philadelphia; Fry and Kammerer. 4to. pp. 554. IN the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven, was published by the author mentioned above the Vision of Columbus, which contains the outline and many of the materials of the present poem. The Columbiad however, beside very considerable additions, is improved and elevated throughout. It is, in its present state, a very uncommon production, and one, which, considering its general plan and the singular conformity of character in all its parts, forms a sort of epoch in the literature of our country. The present poem opens in a very appropriate manner (as may appear) with an invocation to Freedom. That undoubtedly, in which the author wanted her assistance, and in which he has indeed been very successful, was in freeing himself from the old prescriptive rules of criticism, those rusty fetters by which genius has been so long manacled. The oppressive regulations, of which we speak, have produced, it is true, many murmurs of disgust and many symptoms of sedition, but still their authority was in some degree respected, and before the author of this poem none had dared to break out into such open rebellion and defiance. It is this, which constitutes the grand characteristick of the work; and of this we shall now proceed to give a few of the more remarkable instances. The present work obviously comes nearer to the class of epick poems, than to any other. With regard to these it has been required, that they should have for their subject one single great event, to which all their parts are to have relation. The present poem, on the contrary, avoiding this tedious uniformity, treats of a variety of things, which have no common bond of connection, except their nearer or more remote reference to one or the other of the grand divisions of the continent of America. The first book is geographical, and contains an account of its mountains and rivers, and of the face of the country in general. The six next books are historical and fictitious, and narrate events, which have been, or might have been transacted in either of the divisions of the continent before mentioned, relating, for instance, to the history of Capac, the first of the race of Incas, in South America, and to the planting of the British colonies in North America, to their early wars, and finally to the revolution, by which they were separated from their parent country. The eighth book is miscellaneous, and has no particular subject; and the two remaining books are retrospective and prophetical concerning the past and future condition of mankind, which is to undergo a thorough change for the better, when religion and government, as we now know them, being in their present state the two great parents of the miseries of mankind, are to be entirely done away. In this blessed change America is to participate, which constitutes, as far as we can perceive, the connection between these two books and the rest of the poem. Such is the abundance of matter, which it has been contrived to compress into this single work, without, we should think, any reader's being disposed to complain that its author has not written enough upon each one of these subjects. Beside the rule requiring the unity of an epick poem, another, which criticks have laboured to establish, is that its subject should not be of modern date; and they have particularly insisted, that from every serious poem, which treats of recent events, the agency of supernatural beings should be entirely excluded. Both these latter rules the author of this poem treats with equal contempt. What is here described or narrated is supposed to be exhibited to Columbus in vision; and in the course of the events thus exhibited as about to take place, machinery of every kind is continually recurring. Thus, to mention one instance, on the first sailing of lord Delaware up the Chesapeek all the neighbouring river gods rise to welcome him, and the Potowmak at their head addresses him in a pretty long oration in honour of his arrival. But the most splendid thing of this kind is introduced in the account of General Washington's passage of the Delaware before the battle of Trenton. It is a description of the violent opposition of the river and of a tremendous combat between the Genius of America and a being by the name of Frost, whose nature we shall not now attempt to explain, as we intend to notice again this part of the poem. In particular defence of the author's freeing himself from unnecessary restraint in the use of machinery we need only say, that, if he had not done so, we should have lost this wonderful description, which we think goes beyond any thing that we have ever met with in a similar style of writing. Another thing, which has been required in an epick poem, is that the characters introduced should be distinctly marked and distinguished from each other. In the present work the author invests all his favourite characters with an uniform dignity and splendour. Of this we will give a few examples. The following is his character of Raleigh: "High on the tallest deck majestic shone "Sage Raleigh, pointing to the western sun ; "Illumed the shrouds and rainbow'd far the spray." Nothing, one would think, could be finer than the couplet in this description, where we are told that the eye of Raleigh "Seemed piercing nature and evolving time." In the next book however, where the great men of the American revolution are enumerated, the two Adamses, Hancock and Jefferson are grouped together, and characterized in a body, and of them we are told, that they "With eye retortive looked creation through." "Retortive" is a new word, but, if we may judge from the analogies of language, its meaning must be "cast backward." Here, then, by a single epithet the author represents these four great men as having got the start of and looking back upon creation. The following is the description of Washington, when first introduced at the head of the American armies; and between the description of the American general, and that of Raleigh, we think we can trace some resemblance: "In front firm Washington superior shone, "As thro the cloud the bursting splendors glow, "His waving steel returns the living day, "And points, thro unfought fields, the warrior's way.” The following passage is in honour of General Putnam: “There strides bold Putnam, and from all the plains The following is the first mention of Montgomery: "With eager look, conspicuous o'er the crowd, In the following lines General Burgoyne is first introduced to notice: "Tall on the boldest bark superior shone "Which arms had purchased and the Muses twined; "Seem'd sharing empires in the southern sky.” It is thus that the author writes throughout this poem. All his heroes stride, and are majestick, and wave their swords, and stretch their eyes, and, when engaged in battle on the right side, they mow down whole ranks with their falchions. This however is nothing more than was done by the most gentle knights of romance; so that we may say in general, that there is a sort of aquatinta softness and indistinctness of outline about all the figures, which are exhibited in this poem. Another rule with regard to epick poems required, when the characters introduced were not of the poet's invention, but were already known in history, that no qualities should be attributed to them very different from what they were in reality considered to possess. It may be conjectured from what has been last said, that this rule is not scrupulously regarded in the present poem. The characters introduced from history undergo a process of melioration and refinement. Of this there is abundance of examples, but we shall notice only in the character of Columbus. It is astonishing what a transformation the grave old sailor undergoes from the author of this poem. He becomes a man of the most tearful and irritable sensibility. In the beginning of the poem he is represented with some poetical license, as being confined in a dungeon in Castile, by the command of Ferdinand, where he "Sweats the chill sod and breathes inclement skies." Here he awakes and delivers a long soliloquy concerning his past services and present situation, in which, after describing in a very lamentable manner the mutinous disposition of his crews during his first voyage to America, he proceeds: "In that sad hour, this feeble frame to save, This lamentation he at last concludes with repeatedly wishing to die, in an apostrophe to his patroness Isabella : "Hear from above, thou dear departed shade; "Ah, lend thy friendly shroud to veil my sight, At this moment, accompanied with thunder and lightning and the other ceremonies usual upon such occasions, the Genius of America enters, and after announcing first his dignity and then his name, which is Hesper, and mentioning likewise his brother's name, which is Atlas, declares his business to be the administering of consolation to Columbus. As a means to this purpose he carries him to the top of an high mountain, where he shews him in vision (to which we have before alluded) the whole continent of America, and the events to be there transacted as far as to the epoch of the writing of the Columbiad, and the future consequent situation of mankind, but this latter somewhat, more generally and indistinctly. During this exhibition the new character of Columbus is continually discovering itself. His tears flow upon all sorts of occasions. When for instance he perceives, the straits of Magellan : "Soon as the distant swell was seen to roll, "There spreads, belike, that other unsail'd main "I sought so long, and sought, alas, in vain." When the victories and conduct of Cortes are predicted by the Genius, who, like other shewmen, exhibits something, and tells something, Columbus, instead of being roused to indignation, is melted into tears. "Columbus heard; and, with a heaving sigh, |