he had no sooner mentioned her name to his Lordship, than he retreated suddenly, as if stricken with a panic, from the room, and from the house, leaving her to fcilow overwhelmed with confusion. "As an instance of the wit of his conversation, the following extemporary spondiac, descriptive of the three Bedels of the University, who were at that time all very fat men, is still remembered by his academical acquaintance. Pinguia tergeminorum abdomina Bedellorum. "This line he afterwards inserted in one of his poems for the Tripos." As a poet Smart exhibits indubitable proofs of genius, but few of a correct taste, and appears to have seldom exercised much labour, or employed cool judgment in preparing his works for the public. Upon the whole therefore he is most successful in his lighter pieces, his odes, his songs, and fables. Of his odes, that on Illnature; the Morning, Noon, and Night pieces, particularly the last, if the epigrammatic turn at the conclusion does not disappoint the pensive reader, may be cited as productions of rich and original fancy, nor will it detract much from their praise that they sometimes remind us of Milton. His fables are entitled to high praise, for ease of versification and delicacy of humour; and although he may have departed from the laws which some critics have imposed on this species of composition, by giving reason to inanimate objects, it will be difficult by any laws to convince the reader that he ought not to be delighted with the Tea-pot and the Scrubbing-brush, the Bag Wig and the Tobacco-pipe, or the Brocaded Gown and the Linen Rag. In his religious poems, written for the Seatonian prize, there is much to commend, and where we are most disposed to blame, the fault perhaps is in the expectation that such subjects can be treated with advantage. In the preface to his Ode to St. Cecilia, he allows that "the chusing too high subjects has been the ruin of many a tolerable genius ;" and Dr. Johnson, with majestic energy, remarks that "whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; Infinity cannot be amplified ; Perfection cannot be improved." Of this Smart seems to have been aware, although ambition and interest, neither illaudable in his circumstances, prompted him to make an attempt, in which, whatever his success, he was allowed to excel his ri vals. We find him accordingly digressing from his immediate subjects, wherever he can: in his poem on Eternity, he treats of the creation and end of the world, and the last judgment: and in that of Omniscience, he confines himself principally to ne wonderful effects of instinct. That there are some splendid passages in these poems, calculated to elevate the mind, and to impart the pious enthusiasm which animated the poet, it would be unjust to deny, but they are perhaps nearly balanced by pompous irregularities, and some of those extraordinary flights which remind us of Blackmore. What can be worse poetry than such lines as "O Thou whose ways to wonder at's distrust, Whom to describe's presumption."? Or what more bold and reprehensible freedoms than to call the Almighty the 6 "Great Poet of the universe," and to speak of himself as "The Poet of his God?" The Hymn to the Supreme Being is free from all these objections, and is in truth a composition of great pathos and sublimity. The Hilliad is professedly an imitation of the Dunciad, to which, however, it is greatly superior in design, and generally in execution. Hill was a more fair object of ridicule than either of the heroes of Pope's satire, and in the Hilliad we have such a profusion of ludicrous imagery as cannot perhaps be found in any composition of the same length in our language. Of poems written in profound contempt, and with no other object than to accumulate terms and epithets of the most poignant ridicule, the Hilliad perhaps may be considered as the first. POEMS or CHRISTOPHER SMART. ODES. IDLENESS. ODE I. GODDESS of ease, leave Lethe's brink, Sister of peace and indolence, Bring, Muse, bring numbers soft and slow, Elaborately void of sense, And sweetly thoughtless let them flow. Near some cowslip-painted mead, There let me doze out the dull hours, Where, Philomel, your notes your breathe For thee, O Idleness, the woes Of life we patiently endure, Thou art the source whence labour flows, For who'd sustain war's toil and waste, Or who th' hoarse thund'ring of the sea, But to be idle at the last, And find a pleasing end in thee. TO ETHELINDA, Happy Muse, that didst embrace Shall the bard arrive there too? Oft thro' my eyes my soul has flown, When first at Nature's early birth, No, no, fair nymph-for no such end ON AN EAGLE CONFINED IN A COLLEGE COURT. IMPERIAL bird, who wont to soar Their heads in ether shroud; Thou servant of almighty Jove, Who, free and swift as thought, could'st rove ON HER DOING MY VERSES THE HONOUR OF The sovereign thund'rer's arms in air, WEARING THEM IN HER BOSOM.-WRIT TEN AT THIRTEEN, ODE II. HAPPY verses! that were prest In fair Ethelinda's breast! VOL. XVI. And shake thy native pole ! Oh cruel fate! what barbarous hand, What more than Gothic ire, At some fierce tyrant's dread command, C Has plac'd thee in this servile cell, Where discipline and dulness dwell, Where genius ne'er was seen to roam; Where ev'ry selfish soul's at rest, Nor ever quits the carnal breast, But lurks and sneaks at home! Tho' dim'd thine eye, and clipt thy wing Nor on thy mis'ry casts a care, The stream of love ne'er from his heart Flows out, to act fair pity's part; But stinks, and stagnates there. Yet useful still, hold to the throng- The passenger may pass : Who study downward on the ground; Type of the fall of Greece and Rome; While more than mathematic gloom, Envelopes all around. ON THE SUDDEN DEATH OF A CLERGYMAN, ODE IV. Ir, like th' Orphean lyre, my song could charm' Sudden as thy disease should'st thou return, Th' enthusiastic flight of wild despair, To hope the Thracian's magic power to prove. Nor mighty is to move, nor forgetive to feign, Thou canst not in due bounds the struggling mea sures keep, -But thou alas! canst weepThou canst-and o'er the melancholy bier Canst lend the sad solemnity a tear. [cold, Hail to that wretched corse, untenanted and And hail the peaceful shade loos'd from its irksome hold. Now let ine say thon'rt free, For sure thou paid'st an heavy tax for life, While combating for thee, Nature and mortality Maintain'd a daily strife. High, on a slender thread thy vital lamp was plac'd Upon the mountain's bleakest brow, To give a noble light superior was it rais'd, See-hear the storms tempestuous sweep Precipitate it falls-it falls-falls lifeless in the deep. Cease, cease, ye weeping youth, Sincerity's soft sighs, and all the tears of truth. And you, his kindred throng, forbear Marble memorials to prepare, And sculptur'd in your breasts his busto wear. 'Twas thus when Israel's legislator dy'd, No fragile mortal honours were supply'd, But even a grave denied. Better than what the pencil's daub can give, ON GOOD-NATURE. HALL cherub of the highest Heav'n, Celestial sweetness, exquisite of mien, That friendship reigns, no interest can divide, Ideots usurp thy title, and thy frame, Is apathy, is heart of steel, Nor ear to hear, nor sense to feel, Life idly inoffensive such a grace, That it shou'd steal thy name and take thy place? |