Hark! 35 LEONORA. ALMERIA, No, all is hush'd and still as death.Tis dread ful! : How reverend is the face of this tall pile, Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, To bear aloft its arch'd and pond'rous roof, By its own weight made steadfast and immoveable, Looking tranquillity! it strikes an awe And terror on my aching sight; the tombs And monumental caves of death look cold, And shoot a chilness to my trembling heart. Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice, Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear Thy voice-my own affrights me with its echoes. He who reads these lines enjoys for a moment the powers of a poet; he feels what he remembers to have felt before; but he feels it with great increase of sensibility; he' recognizes a familiar image, but meets it again amplified and expanded, embellished with beauty and enlarged with majesty. Yet could the Author, who appears here to have enjoyed the confidence of Nature, lament the death of Queen Mary in lines like these: The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rills Furrow the brows of all th' impending hills. The water-gods to floods their rivulets turn, And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his wanting urn. The fauns forsake the woods, the nymphs the grove, And round the plain in sad distractions rove: With their sharp nails, themselves the satyrs wound, And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief Lo Pan himself, beneath a blasted oak, And, many years after, he gave no proof that time song: And now the winds, which had so long been still, rains Roll the steep torrents headlong o'er the plains. Nothing but groans and sighs were heard around, In both these funeral poems, when he has yelled 37 But William is his hero, and of William he will The hovering winds on downy wings shall wait And catch, and waft to foreign lands, the flying sound. It cannot but be proper to shew what they shall Twas now, when flowery lawns the prospect And flowing brooks beneath a forest-shade, Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls prepar'd And now, for woods, and fields, and springing Behold a town arise, bulwark'd with walls and Two rival armies all the plain o'erspread, Each in battalia rang'd, and shining arms array'd; "The Birth of the Muse" is a miserable fiction. This said, no more remain'd. Th' ethereal host lands; And, having heav'd aloft the ponderous sphere, Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Arabella lia's Day," however, has some lines which Pope had in his mind when he wrote his own. His imitations of Horace are feebly paraphrasti. cal, 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 have not the massiness and vigour of the original. In all his versions strength and spright liness 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 some. times 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 shewn 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 con cealed 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 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 "Except!" Dr. Warton exclaims, "Is not this a high sort of poetry?" He mentions, likewise, that Congreve's Opera, or Oratorio, of "Semele" was set to music by Handel, I believe in 1743.-C. 39 quoted. The general character of his Miscellanies Yet to him it must be confessed that we are indebted for the correction 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 fire requisite for the higher species of lyric poetry, he has shewn us, that enthusiasm has its rules, and that in mere confusion there is neither grace nor greatness. BLACKMORE. IR RICHARD BLACKMORE is one of those men whose writings have attracted much notice, but of whose life and manners very little has been communicated, and whose lot it has been to be much oftener mentioned by enemies than by friends. He was the son of Robert Blackmore, of Corsham, in Wiltshire, styled by Wood, Gentleman, and supposed to have been an attorney. Having been for some time educated in a country school, he was sent, at thirteen, to Westminster; and, in 1668, was entered at Edmund Hall, in Oxford, where he took the degree of M. A. June 3, 1676, and resided thir teen years; a much longer time than it is usual to spend at the university; and which he seems to have passed with very little attention to the business of the place; for, in his poems, the ancient names of nations or places, which he often produces, are pronounced by chance. He afterwards travelled: at Padua he was made doctor of physic; and, after having wandered about a year and a half on the Continent, returned home. |