Odyssey. sentiments so wholly grow up out of his own natural habit and grandeur of thought, as in Milton. The sentiments have been attracted to him by a natural affinity of his intellect, and so combined;—but Jonson has taken them by individual and successive acts of choice. All this and the preceding is well felt and vigor- Epistle Dediously, though harshly, expressed, respecting sublime catorie to the poetry in genere; but in reading Homer I look about me, and ask how does all this apply here? For surely never was there plainer writing; there are a thousand charms of sun and moonbeam, ripple, and wave, and stormy billow, but all on the surface. Had Chapman read Proclus and Porphyry ?—and did he really believe them, or even that they believed themselves? They felt the immense power of a Bible, a Shaster, a Koran. There was none in Greece or Rome, and they tried therefore by subtle allegorical accommodations to conjure the poem of Homer into the βιβλιον θεοπαράδοτον of Greek faith. Epistle Dedicatorie to the Batrachomy Chapman's identification of his fate with Homer's, and his complete forgetfulness of the distinction between Christianity and idolatry, under the general omachia. feeling of some religion, is very interesting. It is amusing to observe, how familiar Chapman's fancy has become with Homer, his life and its circumstances, though the very existence of any such individual, at least with regard to the Iliad and the Hymns, is more than problematic. N.B. The rude engraving in the page was designed by no vulgar hand. It is full of spirit and passion. purpose Batrachomy. omachia. I am so dull, that neither in the original nor in any End of the translation could I ever find any wit or wise in this poem. The whole humor seems to lie in the names. The frogs and mice are not frogs or mice, but men, and yet they do nothing that conveys any satire. In the Greek there is much beauty of language, but the joke is very flat. This is always the case in rude ages; their serious vein is inimitable,—their comic low, and low indeed. The psychological cause is easily stated, and copiously exemplifiable. NOTE IN CASAUBON'S PERSIUS. 1807. THERE are six hundred and sixteen pages in this volume, of which twenty-two are text; and five hundred and ninety-four commentary and introductory matter. Yet when I recollect, that I have the whole works of Cicero, Livy, and Quinctilian, with many others, the whole works of each in a single volume, either thick quarto with thin paper and small yet distinct print, or thick octavo or duodecimo of the same character, and that they cost me in the proportion of a shilling to a guinea for the same quantity of worse matter in modern books, or editions,—I a poor man, yet one whom βιβλίων κτήσεως ἐκ παιδαρίου δεινὸς Expάinos пóbos, feel the liveliest gratitude for the age which proἐκράτησε πόθος, duced such editions, and for the education, which by enabling me to understand and taste the Greek and Latin writers, has thus put it in my power to collect on my own shelves, for my actual use, almost all the best books in spite of my small income. Somewhat too I am indebted to the ostentation of expense among the rich, which has occasioned these cheap editions to become so disproportionately cheap. NOTES ON BARCLAY'S ARGENIS. 1803.* HEAVEN forbid that this work should not exist in its present form and language! Yet I can not avoid the wish that it had, during the reign of James I., been moulded into an heroic poem in English octavo stanza, or epic blank verse ;-which, however, at that time had not been invented, and which, alas! still remains the sole property of the inventor, as if the Muses had given him an unevadible patent for it. Of dramatic blank verse we have many and various specimens ;-for example, Shakspeare's as compared with Massinger's, both excellent in their kind of lyric, and of what may be called Orphic, or philosophic, blank verse, perfect models may be found in Wordsworth :—of col loquial blank verse there are excellent, though not perfect, ex * Communicated by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge. amples in Cowper;-but of epic blank verse, since Milton, there is not one. It absolutely distresses me when I reflect that this work, admired as it has been by great men of all ages, and lately, I hear, by the poet Cowper, should be only not unknown to general readers. It has been translated into English two or three times -how, I know not, wretchedly, I doubt not. It affords matter for thought that the last translation (or rather, in all probability, miserable and faithless abridgment of some former one) was given under another name. What a mournful proof of the incelebrity of this great and amazing work among both the public and the people! For as Wordsworth, the greater of the two great men of this age,-(at least, except Davy and him, I have known, read of, heard of, no others)-for as Wordsworth did me the honor of once observing to me, the people and the public are two distinct classes, and, as things go, the former is likely to retain a better taste, the less it is acted on by the latter. Yet Telemachus is in every mouth, in every school-boy's and school-girl's hand! It is awful to say of a work, like the Argenis, the style and Latinity of which, judged (not according to classical pedantry, which pronounces every sentence right which can be found in any book prior to Boetius, however vicious the age, or affected the author, and every sentence wrong, however natural and beautiful, which has been of the author's own combination,—but) according to the universal logic of thought as modified by feeling, is equal to that of Tacitus in energy and genuine conciseness, and is as perspicu ous as that of Livy, whilst it is free from the affectations, obscurities, and lust to surprise of the former, and seems a sort of antithesis to the slowness and prolixity of the latter-(this remark does not, however, impeach even the classicality of the language, which, when the freedom and originality, the easy motion and perfect command of the thoughts, are considered, is truly wonderful):-of such a work it is awful to say, that it would have been well if it had been written in English or Italian verse! Yet the event seems to justify the notion. Alas! it is now too late. What modern work, even of the size of the Paradise Lost -much less of the Faery Queene-would be 'read in the present day, or even bought, or be likely to-be bought, unless it were an instructive work, as the phrase is, like Roscoe's quartos of Leo X., or entertaining like Boswell's three of Dr. Johnson's conver sations. It may be fairly objected-what work of surpassing merit has given the proof?-Certainly, none. Yet still there are ominous facts, sufficient, I fear, to afford a certain prophecy of its reception, if such were produced. NOTES ON CHALMERS'S LIFE OF SAMUEL DANIEL. The justice of these remarks can not be disputed, though some of them are too figurative for sober criticism. MOST genuine! a figurative remark! If this strange writer had any meaning, it must be :-Headly's criticism is just throughout, but conveyed in a style too figurative for prose composition. Chalmers's own remarks are wholly mistaken; too silly for any criticism, drunk or sober, and in language too flat for any thing In Daniel's Sonnets there is scarcely one good line; while his Hymen's Triumph, of which Chalmers says not one word, exhibits a continued series of first-rate beauties in thought, passion, and imagery, and in language and metre is so faultless, that the style of that poem may without extravagance be declared to be imperishable English. 1820. BISHOP CORBET. I ALMOST Wonder that the inimitable, humor and the rich sound and propulsive movement of the verse, have not rendered Corbet a popular poet. I am convinced that a reprint of his poems, with illustrative and chit-chat biographical notes, and cuts by Cruikshank, would take with the public uncommonly well. September, 1823. NOTES ON SELDEN'S TABLE TALK.* THERE is more weighty bullion sense in this book, than I ever found in the same number of pages of any uninspired writer. OPINION. Opinion and affection extremely differ. I may affect a woman best, but it does not follow I must think her the handsomest woman in the world. * These remarks on Selden were communicated by Mr. Cary.-Ed. * * Opinion is something wherein I go about to give reason why all the world should think as I think. Affection is a thing wherein I look after the pleasing of myself. Good! This is the true difference betwixt the beautiful and the agreeable, which Knight and the rest of that лños sov have so beneficially confounded, meretricibus scilicet et Plutoni. O what an insight the whole of this article gives into a wise man's heart, who has been compelled to act with the many, as one of the many! It explains Sir Thomas More's zealous Romanism, &c. PARLIAMENT. Excellent! O! to have been with Selden over his glass of wine, making every accident an outlet and a vehicle of wisdom! POETRY. The old poets had no other reason but this, their verse was sung to music: otherwise it had been a senseless thing to have fettered up themselves. No man can know all things: even Selden here talks ignorantly. Verse is in itself a music, and the natural symbol of that union of passion with thought and pleasure, which constitutes the essence of all poetry, as contra-distinguished from science, and distinguished from history civil or natural. To Pope's Essay on Man,-in short, to whatever is mere metrical good sense and wit, the remark applies. Ib. Verse proves nothing but the quantity of syllables; they are not meant for logic. True; they, that is, verses, are not logic; but they are, or ought to be, the envoys and representatives of that vital passion, which is the practical cement of logic; and without which logic must remain inert. NOTES ON TOM JONES.* MANNERS change from generation to generation, and with manners morals appear to change,-actually change with some, but appear to change with all but the abandoned. A young man * Communicated by Mr. Gillman.-Ed. |