Obfervations on two of Gray's Odes. 295 without fome notice of the anta- be enriched with 100 plates, without gonifts of this vaft power, perhaps reckoning the portraits of the fultans, their destined victims, we mean the copied from the original pictures of the Turks. At the time of their decline feraglio, and with more than 300 fiit is propofed to write their hiftory. gures, reprefenting the different cufThe profpectus lies before us, and it toms of the empire. They will be feems to promife a complete work. well executed under the direction of It is to confift of fix or eight volumes M. Cochin, M. Moreau junior, and in folio, and the price will be about 900 M. Barbier fen. The profpectus is livres. (371. 10s.) The fubfcription written with fingular fpirit and preeifion. to each of the two first volumes is 150 It points out the different portions of livres (about fix guineas), to be paid the work with great accuracy, and leads on the receipt of the work. The firft us to form the most fanguine expec volume appeared in July; the fecond is to be published in fix months from that period, and the others in fucceffion. The fubfcriptions to be paid to M. Didot, but we are informed that the price is now rifen to 180 livres for each of the two first volumes. The work will tations of its execution. The laws and cuftoms of the Turks, a fubject very little understood in Europe form a large and interefting part of the work. The title is Tableau Generale de l'Empire Othoman; and the author is M, de Mouradgea d'Ohfson. FEW the forms harbingers. The rofy-bofomed hours waking the purple year, forms a fplendid confufion of imagery that no painter could draw, and that no man of fenfe can understand.-Where gran dear is ftudied, abstract terms are proper; where beauty is intended, particular images have a happier effect. Obfervations on two of Gray's Odes*. Ode on the Spring. EW authors have attempted poetical compofition who have not celebrated the approach of Spring. This does not fo much arife from perfonal obfervation and natural feeling, but from a glow kindled in the fancy by reading the defcriptions of the Greek, Roman, and Italian poets. An imaginary beauty is often more powerful than a real one. Thus from reading romances and novels we conceive the idea that women are angels; and tho' an angel in petticoats was never difcovered any where but in romance, we act under the influence of this delufion "Lo! where the rofy-bofom'd hours, The untaught harmony of spring: Why are the hours faid to be rofybofomed and to be in the train of Venus? Ifhould rather take them to be her * Who is the "Attic warbler ?" I profefs I do not know. There is no harmony in the cuckoo's note: This bird is remarkable as being the meffenger of the fpring, but not as a fongftrefs. The three laft lines of this ftanza are very good. "Where-e'er the oak's thick branches A broader browner fhade; O'er-canopies the glade; Befide fome water's rufhy brink (At eafe reclin❜d in ruftic state) A Northern poet, if he was to con fult his own feelings, would, on the arrival of fpring, walk on a green hill, bask in the fun, and enjoy the beauties Erop. Mag. of of nature around him. He has no By far the best, and worth all the occafion for the broad brown fhade of Still is the toiling hand of Care; The firft ftanza plainly refers to morning, here it is noon, "To glow," I imagine, is an object of fight, not of hearing. This ftanza however is claffical. "To Contemplation's fober eye Such is the race of man: And they that creep, and they that fly, Alike the bufy and the gay Very good night-thoughts, not vernal contemplations at all. In the eighth line, "fwept" is a more proper word than "bruth'd," as the befom of deftruction is an image of more dignity than the brush of mifchance. "Methinks I hear, in accents low, Thy joys no glitt'ring female meets, reft put together. This infect fper like an angel, and gives an excellent rebuke to the poet, for having forfaken the paths of nature to indulge in an unfeasonable morality. Quære, Why are most vernal odes melancholy? Is it not from the natural feelings of men getting the better of their early prejudices; and the demon of the Eaft counteracting the genius of the Weft? N. B. I once wrote An Ode on Spring, which I fhall not look at for the prefent, left I fhould find myself the object of my own criticifm; an incident very likely to happen in the fluctuations of this prefent evil world, SECOND ODE. A Child forms a carrot into the fi gure of a man; a clown carves a human head on his ftaff, (often the best head of the two) and men of genius enter tain themselves by animating inferior objects with their own paffions and defires. The amufements of people have often a reference to their ferious purfuits; and great poets, from Homer to Gray, have amused themselves and their readers, by giving a kind of heroic confequence to the little incidents of the hour. A trifle is more than a trifle from a great man; and though we are forry to hear that Hercules handled the distaff, and that Achilles wore pet ticoats, we are well pleased to find that Alcibiades diverted himself with chil dren, and that Addison fought birds' nefts. In works of this kind the concealed allegory forms one of the great beauties of the piece. Homer's Mice and Frogs are Greek and Trojan heroes in dif guife; and Gray's Šelima, excepting her tortoife coat, her fnowy beard, her purring and her paws, (not forgetting her confcious tail) is a real woman, and actuated with female paffions. This obfervation, I think, obviates the ob jection which Johnson has made to this pretty poem, which is a happy speci men of that humour which Gray of ten fhews in his letters. Of the Sentiment of Melancholy O benevent is Nature, that fhe makes all her phenomena fubfervient to our pleafure; and thofe of them that are the most common, are likewise the most agreeable. I am, for inftance, affected with the moft pleafing fenfation when the clouds difcharge themfelves in torrents, when I fee the water dropping from mofsgrown walls, and hear the howling of the winds mingled with the dah ing of the rain. Thefe melancholy fqunds, during the night, difpofeme to foft and quiet fleep. Nor am I alone fenfible to fuch impreffions. Pliny talks of a Roman conful, who, when it rained, ordered his bed to be made under the thick foliage of a tree, that he might liften to the noife of the falling drops, and be lulled to fleep by their gentle murmuring. I do not know to what phyfical law thefe melancholy fenfations are referred by philofophers. For my own part,. I find them the most voluptuous affections of the foul: probably, because they gratify at once the two powers of which we are formed, the foul and the body, the fenfe of mifery and that of enjoyment. Thus, for instance, in bad weather the fenfe of human mifery is gratified, because I know that it rains, and I feel that I am under cover; that it blows, and that I am at eafe in a warm bed. I am then fenfible of negative happiness. I afterwards affociate with thefe confiderations fome of those attributes of the Deity, the perception of which gives fo much pleafure to the mind, fuch as the idea of infinity of fpace fuggefted by the diftant murmur of the winds. This fentiment may be extended by reflecting on the laws of nature, when I confider that this rain, which comes perhaps from the Weft, has been raifed from the bofom of the ocean, perhaps on the coafts of America; VOL. VI. No 35. that it comes to wash our great cities. to fill the refervoirs of our fountains, to render our rivers navigable: and while the clouds which pour it out advance towards the Eaft to convey fertility to the vegetables of Tartary, the feeds, and fpoils which it carries down our rivers proceed towards the Weft, and are deftined to feed the fifhes of the Atlantic O cean. Thefe travels of fancy give my foul an expanfion agrecable to its nature, and are pleafing in propor tion to the tranquillity and fecurity which my body, fond of repofe, at that time poffelles. If I am in low fpirits, and difinclined to let my imagination ramble fo far, I feel, however, a pleasure in yielding to the melancholy mood which the inclemency of the weather infpires. Then Nature appears to fympathife with my fituation, like an affectionate friend. Befides, the ap pears to me at all times, and in eve❤ ry refpect fo beautiful, that when it rains I think I fee a fine woman who weeps; and the more afflicted the feems, fhe is in my eyes the more beautiful. Thefe feelings are not to be experienced when we have been a→ walking, a-hunting, on a vifit, or on a journey in bad weather; times when a man is apt to be in ill humour, be caufe his inclination has been counteracted. Neither will we enjoy them if we cross our two powers, or make them joftle each other; that is, if we transfer the idea of infinity to the fide of mifery, by indulging the thought that this rain is never to have an end; or that of our mifery to the phenomena of nature, by complaining that the feafons have changed, that the elements are in diforder, and thus abandon ourselves to that fort of falfe reafoning which a man is inclined to indulge who has been wet to the fkin. In order to enjoy ill Co weather, Etudes de la Nature, weather, our fancy only fhould travel, and the body be at reft. It is from the harmony of thofe two powers of which we are compofed, that the moft terrible convulfions of nature often interest us more than her gayeft fcenes. The volcano of Naples attracts more travellers than the delightful gardens that embellifh its fhores; the plains of Greece and of Italy, covered with ruins, more than the rich fields of England; the picture of a tempeft more than that of a calm; and the fall of a tower, more than its conftruction. I have long thought that there refides in man a certain principle that makes him pleafed with ruin. When the people find an ancient monument in their power, they deftroy it. I faw at Drefden, in the garden of Count Bruhl, fome beautiful ftatues of women, which the Pruffian foldiers had diverted themselves with fhooting at, when they took poffeffion of that town. The majority of the vulgar are prone to fcandal, they delight in pulling down a rifing fame. But this is not a natural instinct. It fprings from the unhappiness of individuals whofe education has infpired them with ambition, and whofe fituation has prevented them from gratifying it. In this cafe, the tafte for ruin is not natural, but merely an exercife of the power of a malevolent being. Man, in a favage ftate, deftroys the monuments of his enemies only, he preferves thofe of his own nation with the greatelt care; and, what proves that his natural difpofitions are better than thofe of civilized man, he never flanders his companions. But however this may be, the paffive tafte for ruin is univerfal. Our voluptuaries conftruct artificial ruins in their gardens, the favage delights to take his reft on the fhore, efpecially when the fea is agitated with a ftorm; or in the neighbourhood of a cataract encircled with rocks. Great scenes of devastation afford objects new and picturefque; and, to gratify a tafte for fuch ob jets, as well as from cruelty of dif pofition, Nero fet Rome on fire that he might have the view of a confiagration. This kind of pleasure, which is not conne&ted with our phyfical wants, has made fome philofophers fuppofe that the foul, being an active principle, was pleafed with every extraordinary emotion. For this rea fon, fay they, do fo many people flock to a public execution. Such spectacles, indeed, afford no picturefque beauties; but the foul loves rest as well as action. It is a harmonious principle, eafily difcompofed by violent emotions; and though it were in its nature active, I do not fee how it fhould be pleafed with actions that threaten it with deftruction. Lucretius, in my opinion, has come nearer the truth, when he fays, that fuch pleasures arife from the fenfe of our fecurity, which is redoubled at the fight of the danger to which others are expofed. Undoubtedly, it is this application to one's felf that makes many people, when affembled at the fire-fide in a Winter evening, fo earneftly liften to tales of ghofts, and apparitions of men led aftray in the night into woods, and robbed and murdered. It is from the fame principle that more cultivated minds are fond of feeing tragedies, of reading defcriptions of battles, of fhipwrecks, of the fall of empires. The fecurity of the citizen is doubly felt when he thinks of the dangers which the warrior, the mariner, the courtier, are liable to. This kind of pleasure originates from a fenfe of human mifery, which, as we have faid, is one of the incentives to melancholy. But there is a fentiment ftill more fublime, which makes us in love with ruin, independent of its picturefque effect, or of any idea of fecurity; I mean that of the Deity, which never fails to mingle in our melancholy contemplations and to render them delight ful Of the Sentiment of Melancholy 299 ful. I fhall ftate fome characters of the contrary, I thought I heard a this idea, by tracing the impreflions plaintive voice whifpering, Alas! if which the fight of different forts of fuch fhould be the fate of your native ruin makes upon the mind. The fub- land! ject is new and rich, but above my powers. I fhall, however, in a few words, endeavour to vindicate and exalt human nature. The human heart is fo naturally benevolent, that the fight of a ruin, which recalls to our mind the mifery of our fellow creatures, infpires us with horror, notwithstanding any beauties it may poffefs. I was at Drefden in 1765, feveral years after its bombardment. That pretty little commercial city was then more than half in ruins. The enemy had chiefly directed the bombs upon the Lutheran church of St Peter, which is fo strongly built, that the bombs ftruck the cupola without hurting it, and rebounded upon the neighbouring little palaces, which it almost entirely deftroyed. When I came there, they had only cleared a few ftreets from the ftones that encumbered them, with which they had formed a long parapet of the rubbish on each fide. Some of the houfes were ftill ftanding, cleft from top to bottom. In fome were feen the fragments of a ftair-cafe, painted cielings, little clofets decked with Chinese paper, broken mirrors, marble chimneys, and gilding fullied with fmoke. The people wore dejection in their faces; people formerly fo gay, that they had been filed the French of Germany. These ruins, which prefented a multiplicity of fingular objects, either by their forms, their colour, or their groups, affected the mind with deep melancholy; for nothing was feen but the traces of a wrathful monarch, not making his attack on the bold ramparts of a fortified city, but on the pleafant dwellings of an induf trious people. Though a ftranger, I felt not that idea of fecurity that rifes in us at the fight of distress Som which we are exempt; but, on ga But the ruins occafioned by time do not affect the mind in the fame manner. Thefe pleafe us by giving fcope to the fancy, they carry us back to ages that have long paffed away, and intereft us in proportion to their antiquity. This is the reafon why the ruins of Italy affect us more than our own, thofe of Greece more than those of Italy, and thofe of Egypt more than both. The firft ancient monument I ever faw was the triumphal arch of Marius, erected on his victory over the Cimbri. It is at a little distance from Orange, and ftands in the fields. When I came near, I had not eyes enough to fatisfy the keennefs with which I zed on it. It is a work of the Romans, faid I, and my imagination inftantly tranfported me to Rome at the time of Marius. It would be diffi cult to defcribe the fentiments that fucceffively rofe within me. At first, this monument, though raised over the calamities of mankind, like every other triumphal arch in Europe, gave me no pain; for I recollected that the Cimbri had come with an intention to ravage and plunder Italy. I confidered, that if this arch was a monument of the victory of the Romans over the Cimbri, it alfo indicated the power of time over the Romans. The bas-re lief upon the frieze reprefented a battle, and the letters S. P. Q. R. were diftinct. But the warriors had fuffered much; they had neither arms nor faces, and fome of them even wanted legs. The monument, however, was well preferved, except the pier of an arcade, which a neighbouring curate had demolished for the purpofe of repairing the warfonage houfe. This modern injury fuggefted other reflections on the excellence of the ancient architecture in public works; for notwithstanding the demolition of this Q |