"The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rills The water gods to floods their rivulets turn, And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his wanting urn. In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear, And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair. With their sharp nails, themselves the Satyrs wound, And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground. The Queen of Love, all bath'd in flowing tears; See how she wrings her hands and beats her breast, And tears her useless girdle from her waist: Hear the sad murmurs of her sighing doves! For grief they sigh, forgetful of their loves." And, many years after [1703], he gave no proof that time had improved his wisdom or his wit; for, on the death of the Marquis of Blandford, this was his song: "And now the winds which had so long been still, Began the swelling air with sighs to fill; The water-nymphs, who motionless remain❜d, Now loos'd their streams: as when descending rains The prone creation who so long had gaz'd, Dismal to hear, and horrible to tell! Nothing but groans and sighs were heard around, And Echo multiplied each mournful sound." In both these funeral poems, when he has yelled out many syllables of senseless dolour, he dismisses his reader with senseless consolation from the grave of Pastora rises a light that forms a star; and where Amaryllis wept for Amyntas, from every tear sprung up a violet. But William is his hero, and of William he will sing : "The hovering winds on downy wings shall wait around, It cannot but be proper to show what they shall have to catch and carry : ""T was now, when flowery lawns the prospect made, And flowing brooks beneath a forest's shade, A lowing heifer, loveliest of the herd, Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls prepar'd Unthought presage of what met next my view; For soon the shady scene withdrew. And now, for woods, and fields, and springing flowers, Two rival armies all the plain o'erspread, Each in battalia rang'd, and shining arms array'd; With eager eyes beholding both from far Namur, the prize 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 remain'd. Th' etherial host The father, now, within his spacious hands Encompass'd all the mingled mass of seas and lands; He launch'd the world to float in ambient air." Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Arabella Hunt seems to be the best his ode for Cecilia's Day," however, has 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." 24A Hymn to Harmony,' written in honour of St. Cecilia's Day, 1701. By Mr. Congreve, London: Tonson. 1703, fol. as I have read my friend Congreve's verses to Lord Cobham, which end with a vile and false moral, and I remember is not in Horace to Tibullus, which he imitates, "that all times are 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 an 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 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 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 shown us that enthusiasm has its rules, and that in mere confusion there is neither grace nor greatness. equally virtuous and vicious:" wherein he differs from all poets, philosophers, and Christians that ever writ.-SWIFT to Lord Bolingbroke, April 5, 1729. (Scott, xvii. 253, 2nd ed.) 26 In the Dedication of his 'Miscellany' (1714) to Congreve; also in 'Spectator,' No. 422. 27 This observation has already been made by Mr. Congreve, in his Preface to two admirable odes, written professedly in imitation of Pindar; and I may add, so much in his true manner and spirit, that he ought by all means to be excepted out of the number of those who have brought Pindar into discredit by pretending to resemble him.-GILBERT WEST: Preface to Pindar. That Pindar's odes were regular, English writers might have ascertained from Ben Jonson's noble Pindaric Ode on the Death of Sir Henry Morison' (see Gifford's 'Ben Jonson,' ix. 8), and from Philips's account of Cowley in the Theatrum Poetarum,' 1675. |