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The island-grotto of Calypso must have tasked the attention of listeners to put it together in their imagination. The descriptive points are doled out in the course of Mercury's movements of approach. We have (1) the cavern mid the tall green rocks; (2) the emanation of a smell of cedar and of citron wood. Intervening between these and the next descriptive touch, is the account of the goddess sitting inside, spinning and singing. Then (3) a sylvan nook, grown round with trees-poplars, elms and cypresses; (4) nests of 'birds of ample wing'-owl, hawk, and broad-tongued water-fowl; (5) in front, a green vine, with dark round clusters; (6) four running fountains, refreshing the place; (7) a meadow, where 'violets mingled with the parsley green'. The grouping and arrangement seem pretty much at random; the particulars do not easily fall into their places in a coherent whole.

Of shorter picturesque touches, we may quote, as a good example, the description of Apollo going forth to shoot his arrows at the Grecian host.

Along Olympus' heights he passed, his heart
Burning with wrath; behind his shoulders hung
His bow and ample quiver; at his back
Rattled his fateful arrows as he moved.*

* One famous Homeric description, highly elaborated-the Shield of Achilles made by Vulcan-deserves further notice (Iliad, Book XVIII.). First we are told how the shield was fashioned great and strong, adorned all over, and with a triplebright-shining rim. The shield itself consisted of five folds, and Vulcan fashioned upon it much cunning work from his wise heart'. The remainder of the description details this 'cunning work,' as it was made. There were wrought on it the earth, the heavens, the sea, and all the prominent heavenly bodies. There were two cities: one showing a wedding with loud bridal song, and a dispute before the judges, with details of the dispute; the other a siege and defence, with an ambuscade of the defenders leading to a battle with the besiegers. Then were made representations of ploughing, harvesting and the vintage, with the various figures, movements and sounds appropriate to each. Next were fashioned groups representing a herd of kine with herdsmen, attacked by lions; a deep glen with pasture-land and a flock, with folds and huts; and a festival dance of youths and maidens, to the music of a minstrel. Finally, there was made the River of Ocean around the outermost rim.

Now, this lengthened description suggests several remarks.

In the first place, though it professes to follow the order of construction, no particular aid to our conception is thereby obtained; and, indeed, a view of the completed shield would have helped us more than the description of the scenes as successively wrought,

Secondly, we greatly miss any comprehensive view of the whole shield. The form might indeed be assumed as known to his readers, but it was of great importance to indicate the relative positions of the figures and groups so elaborately described; yet the only indication given is in reference to the River of Ocean as shown around the rim. It has been assumed that the earth, the sea, and the heavenly bodies are in the centre; that the varied scenes of life are placed around these; that these scenes are divided into twelve compartments, arranged in groups of three corresponding to a city in war, a city in peace, out-door country life, and pastoral groups. (See Homer-The Iliad, in Ancient Classics for English Readers.) But nothing of this is in Homer's description, and these suggested arrangements only indicate the reader's sense of the want.

Greek poetry, after Homer, was equally sparing in elaborate scenic description, and equally copious in the picturesque touches that enliven action. The famous choral ode of SOPHOCLES, descriptive of Colonos, is full of striking particulars poetically rendered, but there is no attempt to make them hang together.

Stranger, thou art standing now
On Colonos' sparry brow:

All the haunts of Attic ground,
Where the matchless coursers bound,
Boast not, through their realms of bliss,
Other spot as fair as this.

Frequent down this greenwood dale
Mourns the warbling nightingale,
Nestling 'mid the thickest screen
Of the ivy's darksome green.

Sophocles, by Collins.

And so on, with other particulars, to make up a splendid eulogy of the place. Narcissus buds in clustering beauty, the golden Crocus gleams, unfailing streams and bubbling fountains feed pure Cephisus, whose waters bid the pastures blossom.

The Picturesque attained a high pitch in Virgil. But, as in the case of Homer, it is principally the picturesque of action and movement, and not of repose or still life. If he gives a minute picture, it is mere enumeration, without position in a plan. Thus the palace of Latinus

There too were spoils of bygone wars
Hung on the portals,-captive cars,
Strong city-gates with massive bars,
And battle-axes keen,

And plumy cones from helmets shorn,
And beaks from vanquished vessels torn,
And darts, and bucklers sheen.

Thirdly, there is confusion throughout between the scenes as they might be observed in actual life and the same as they might be wrought in inetal. As pictures of life, they would be spirited and interesting, though some of them, such as the city scenes, are not very clear, perhaps from our ignorance of the actions described. But as representations of art, they introduce elements impossible to be represented, or even suggested, in metal; such as varying sounds, progressive actions and the discourse and purposes of the actors. Even if the supernatural power of Vulcan be appealed to, as overcoming the difficulties, it does not help us to conceive the picture.

The whole seems to show the strength of the poet in simple pictures, while his art was not equal to so complicated a description.

When the fleet of Æneas enters the mouth of the Tiber,

he sees

A mighty grove of glancing trees.
Embowered amid the silvan scene
Old Tiber winds his banks between,
And in the lap of ocean pours

His gulfy stream, his sandy stores.

To which the poet adds, like Homer in the cave of Calypso, the presence of the birds, fluttering and singing.

The muster of the Latin tribes, in the seventh Æneid, is the picturesque of action in its full swing, the exemplar of innumerable subsequent poets, among whom Scott and Macaulay are not the least notable.

Ausonia, all inert before,

Takes fire and blazes to the core:
And some on foot their march essay,
Some, mounted, storm along the way;
To arms! cry one and all:

With unctuous lard their shields they clean,
And make their javelins bright and sheen,
Their axes on the whetstone grind ;
Look how that banner takes the wind!
Hark to yon trumpet's call !

Five mighty towns, with anvils set,
In emulous haste their weapons whet:
Crustumium, Tibur the renowned,
And strong Atina there are found,
And Ardea, and Antemnæ crowned
With turrets round her wall.

Splendid touches could be found among the many poetic effects in Horace. How effective his Lalage, melodious alike in her laugh and in her talk (dulce ridentem, dulce loquentem)!

Short descriptions of considerable picturesqueness are frequent. For example, the following stanza in the serenading Ode to Lyce→

Only hark how the doorway goes straining and creaking,

And the piercing wind pipes through the trees that surround
The court of your villa, while black frost is streaking
With ice the crisp snow that lies thick on the ground.

Or this description of a river

All else which may by time be bred
Is like a river of the plain,

Now gliding gently o'er its bed
Along to the Etruscan main,

-Theodore Martin.

Now whirling onwards, fierce and fast,
Uprooted trees and boulders vast,

And flocks, and houses, all in drear
Confusion tossed from shore to shore,
While mountains far, and forests near,
Reverberate the rising roar,

When lashing rains among the hills
To fury wake the quiet rills.

Longer descriptions may be found in the picture of the Islands of the Blessed (Epodes XVI.), consisting of a series of features aiming chiefly at emotional harmony, or the journey to Brundusium (Satires, I. 5), described with many touches of picturesque humour.

CHAUCER'S mastery of the picturesque has already come into view. His graphic similitudes are not his only art. His selection of points is equally notable. Not often does any poet venture upon the full details of a human countenance: Chaucer has elaborated two very different pictures of heads -the prioress and the miller. The miller's wart is an example of a suggestive feature: it carries with it to the mind a good deal besides. In the Wife of Bath,' the deafness is a well-chosen particular, among various others in that wonderful personation.

The poetic invention of SPENSER supplies innumerable strokes of the picturesque; any want of effectiveness being referable to his diffuseness, exuberance and want of lucidity. It is not his purpose to elaborate scenic pictures, either of still-life or of action, further than as they serve to excite emotion; and he depends for ease of comprehension more upon his poetic invention than upon method.

The first example is purely scenic

A little lowly Hermitage it was,

Downe in a dale, hard by a forest's side,
Far from resort of people that did pas
In travell to and froe; a little wyde
There was an holy chappell edifyde,
Wherein the Hermite dewly wont to say
His holy things each morne and eventyde:
Thereby a christall streame did gently play,

Which from a sacred fountaine welled forth alway..

The best order for pictorial effect would be the following:- 'Down in a dale, hard by a forest's side, far from people, was a little lowly hermitage; near which was a holy chapel; and by it a fountain welled forth a gentle crystal stream'. It is better not to interrupt the descriptive

SPENSER. SHAKESPEARE.

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particulars, by an action that gives no support to the description. The hermit's morn and even prayers can be recounted separately. The circumstance 'far from people' is suggestive and supporting; but there is no necessity for the addition—'that did pass in travel to and fro’.

The exuberance of Spenser's style is better typified by the following

And over him, not striving to compair

With nature, did an arber greene dispred,
Framed of wanton yvie, flouring faire,

Through which the fragrant eglantine did spred
His prickling armes, entrayld with roses red,
Which daintie odours round about them threw
And all within with flowers were garnished,
That, when myld Zephyrus emongst them blew,

Did breath out boundless smell, and painted colors shew.

There is no picturesque method observed in this instance. The same poet is distinguished for his power of personal descriptions. They have the author's characteristic of poetic force. See his Mammon' in Book II., Canto VII. 3.

An uncouth, salvage, and uncivile wight

Of griesly hew and fowle ill-favour'd sight;

His face with smoke was tand, and eyes were bleard,

His head and beard with sout were ill-bedight,

His cole-blacke hands did seeme to have been reard

In smithes fire-spitting forge, and nayles like clawes appeard.

Being short, this is more conceivable than Spenser's pictures generally are.

The picturesqueness of SHAKESPEARE is on a level with. all his other arts. Epithets are in the highest profusion. The Seven ages' is an example of what may be called picturing by representative or typical circumstances. The first question for the critic is-Are these well chosen?—the next, Are they vividly rendered?

-'the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail, Unwillingly to school;'

is one view of the age of boyhood, supported by graphically chosen circumstances; the shining morning face' being powerfully suggestive. Equally typical would have been the digressions and stoppages for play. The most powerful