Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! As I have occasionally quoted, for the entertainment of the reader and to relieve the dryness of verbal criticism, several translators, subsequent to Pope; it may be expected, that I should pass a short judgement upon them also. In the year 1740 H. Travers publisht by subscription a miscellaneous collection of poetry: among which are translations of the three first Iliads, and from the sixth the story of Bellerophon. The whole of this collection evinces a man of genuine poetic talents; and the translations just mentioned are executed with considerable ability. But he treads closely in the steps of Pope: and, though he frequently improves on his predecessor, the general effect of his version is cold and feeble in comparison, and sufficiently shews at every step the extent of his obligations to the model, which lay before him. He too, though a man of learning, has supinely adopted some of his master's misrepresentations of their author. The merits of Mr. Cowper it is much more difficult to estimate, with a benevolent regard at the same time to the sacred feelings of an amiable writer, under a reverence inspired by a man of fine genius, and with justice to the public by a religiously scrupulous adherence to sincerity. I speak with unwilling emphasis, but unaffected hesitation, when I assert, If my own ears are not absolutely unattuned to the mellifluous cadence of poetic numbers, the structure of Mr. Cowper's verse is harsh, broken, and inharmonious, to a degree in conceivable in a writer of so much original and intrinsic excellence. His fidelity to his author is, however, entitled to unreserved praise, and proclaims the accuracy and intelligence of a critical proficient in his language. The true sense of Homer and the character of his phraseology may be seen in Mr. Cowper's version to more advantage beyond all comparison, than in any other translation whatsoever within the compass of my knowledge. His epithets are frequently combined after the Greek manner, which our language most happily admits, with singular dexterity and complete success: his diction is grand, copious, energetic, and diversified; full fraught with every embellishment of poetic phraseology: his turns of expression are on many occasions hit off with most ingenious felicity; and there are specimens of native simplicity also in his performance, that place him at least on a level with his author, and vindicate his title in this respect to a superiority over all his predecessors in this most arduous and painful enterprise. Boswell, in his life of Johnson, has spoken of Mr. Cowper's translation with an unfeeling petulance, with an insolent dogmatism, perfectly congenial to that rash and audacious censor*.' This sentence would have been accompanied by some additional chastisement; but the object of it is beyond the reach of human reformation: From zeal or malice now no more to dread; Gg3 The The editor, then, in a brief and modest manner, gives a view of what he thought incumbent on himself to undertake, in consequence of his engagement. This he states to have been, 1. to point out the translator's material deviations from the sense of his original; 2. to open the sources of these deviations, and at the same time to exhibit the versions of preceding translators on which Pope had modelled his own; and, 3. to pass a free censure on the defects of versification of a master whose example carries with it such weight. We have no doubt that he will be judged to have executed his task, as thus determined by his own ideas, with taste and industry. ART. XIV. The Vales of Wever, a Loco-descriptive Poem, inscribed to the Rev. John Granville, of Calwich, Staffordshire. By J. Gisborne, Esq. 4to. pp. 88. 5s. Boards. Stockdale. 1797. THE HE Vales of Wever are situated in the neighbourhood of Wootton in Staffordshire, where the author lately resided, and to which he consecrates these votive farewell affectionate lines. A task which Dr. Darwin has successfully accomplished in the verse of five feet is undertaken, by the author of these cantos, in the less flexile line of four feet. He endeavours to slide the most pearly words of our poetry on silver wire with exquisite compactness, and to string his golden harp exclusively with lines thus sparkling with jewels-without injury to the total effect of his music. We deem it a dangerous experiment. Profuse, perpetual, and splendid beauties of detail are seldom compatible with the strong impression of the whole; particularly if they be beauties of the same class, and do not, like alternations of the ludicrous and the pathetic, serve as foils to each other. Yet we are aware that the progress of refinement has occasioned, in every nation, the attempt to unite the utmost delicacy of local polish with the nicest proportions of general design. Those who might have succeeded in carving a statue often prefer to display their powers of grouping and finishing on the tiny surface of a cameo or a vase. The following passage will give an idea of Mr. Gisborne's manner: Yon oak, whose tottering trunk displays Oft have I linger'd to survey That trunk with age enamell'd gray; O'er O'er his rent bark pale lichen bends, As Spring's ambrosial hands unfold "When bleak December's arctic breath Urges the giant "work of death," Gg 4 Prone Prone from these crags, high-roof'd with snow, Vast columns deck'd with fretwork nice, The sun, the whelming whirlwind brave, He bellows from his ice-built throne: The rigour of my polar sky?" Stamps the deep drift, and dark inshrouds Showers from his shrivell'd hands around Pellucid piles incessant grow.] The incessant droppings from many of the cliffs in the vicinity of Wootton produce, in the course of a severe winter, some of the most singular and beautiful pillars of ice that imagination can devise. In the month of January, 1795, I measured many of them that were from four to eleven feet in altitude, and from six inches to four feet in circumference. Some of these columns were of very unequal periphery, and jagged and fluted in a fantastic manner. Those that were of uniform thickness appeared as elegant supporters to the impending shelves and canopies of rock. The surfaces of the adjacent crags are beautifully glazed and decorated with a bright coating of ice, through which the marchantia polymorpha and several species of moss and fein displayed the luxuriancy of spring. From the ceiling of the celebrated cavern ia Dove-dale (well known by the name of Reynard's Hall) vast pendants of ice were clustered together, many of which, I believe, were full four yards in length; and these were tapered down to so fine a periphery, that their extremities were as sharp as the point of a sword. Others were twisted in a singular mode, and variegated with white incrustations of ice and snow, and the sides of the cavern were partially embossed with crysta! nodules. The floor of this spacious cavern appeared decorated by the hand of magic. Wherever the droppings fell upon it, they became congealed, and hence one drop freezing upon another produced eccentric pillars of ice. These were of various dimensions, and of different colour. Had the frost continued a month longer, it is proble that these pillars would have come into contact with the growing pendants from the roof.' 13 Spite ** Spite of the tyrant, Flora spreads of the North So the dire EMPRESS So the dire EMPRESS.] Since this poem was written, the Empress of Russia has ceased to exist, and death has removed from the world one of the most formidable tyrants in female form that ever threatened the liberties of mankind. If we look into the life of this extraordinary woman, we shall find indeed little to admire, but much to condemn. Actuated by no principle, of virtue, ambitious of unlimited power, crafty and resolute in her policy, she affected to consider the oppression of surrounding nations as a duty she owed to the safety of her own empire. It has however been asserted, that she was a popular sovereign within her dominions; but let it be remembered, that attachment and loyalty are often professed from fear, and it would require more than papal faith to believe that this principle had no influence with her enslaved commonalty. If we ex. amine the ancient boundaries of Russia, and compare them with those that are delineated on a modern chart, truth will oblige us to confess the amazing growth of the empire under her auspices. But the historian, who exercises his solemn inquiry into the conduct of sovereigns, will inform posterity, that the aggrandisement of Russia in the late reign was attended with wanton tyranny and refined barbarities; and that rivers of human blood were made to Aow from that horrible spirit of revenge which was ever conspicuous in the counsels of Catharine. Painful however must be the feelings of the historian who details with fidelity the massacres at Ismail, or those of a later date at Praga: for there are (as an admirable auther observes)" certain degrees of human depravity creative of sensations, which no tongue can express, and no language describe.”—Belsham. But |
