of language and an ostentation of learning, and his style is not unfrequently defective in perspicuity and polish. It is with reluctance, however, that we pass any censure on the work of a man who appears to be actuated by the best motives, and whose knowlege claims our respect.

THIS

ART. VII. Pictures of Poetry; Historical, Biographical, and Criti cal. By Alex. Thomson, Esq. Author of Whist, and the Paradise of Taste*. Crown 8vo. pp. 250. 5s. Boards. Printed at Edinburgh, and sold in London by Longman and Rees. 1799. "HIS small work forms only part of a plan in which the author designs, if the reception of this effort should encourage him to persevere, to give a complete view of the advancement of polite literature, from the earliest account to the present time. The volume now offered to us chiefly relates to the literature of Greece, including also that of the Hebrews. It commences with a sketch of the court of Solomon, and ends with that of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The great variety of subjects, which such a plan must necessarily comprehend, are here divided into fourteen different poems; or, as the author calls them, Pictures; each comprizing all the anecdotes, historical and biographical, which he had collected relating to the particular topic denominating the poem: such for instance as 'Sappho, and the Triumphs of Female Genius'-' Homer and Hesiod, or the Utility of Poetry'-'Honours paid to Poetry, or Treatment of the Athenian Captives in Sicily,' &c. The second division of the work will treat of Roman Literature; the third will be occupied by the middle ages; and the fourth by the letters and poetry of the last three centuries.

Among the circumstances which may secure to this undertaking a favourable reception, in this age of indolent levity, is the variety which it holds out to attract attention; and which is to be found not only in the matter, but in the measure and composition of the work: some of the pieces being in blank verset, some in the common couplet measure, some lyric and

See M. R. vol. vi. N. S. p. 401. and vol. xxi. p. 274, In the arduous attempt to write blank verse, in which so few succeed, Mr.T. has been more unsuccessful than in any other portion of his work. Of the prosaic nature of his lines, the following instances will suffice:

• On hearing this, his Pupils did not chuse

To trust themselves within.-One of the two

Had often brav'd the shouts of enemies,

And tumult of the battle.'-
L 3

lez

and some exhibiting two several modes of verse in the same poem. It must be confessed, however, that another kind of variety occurs here, which is not so likely to conciliate approbation;-viz. variety of merit; passages frequently presenting themselves, which have nothing to relieve the prosaic tameness that marks both the thought and the expression, while in others certainly we find true poetic imagery, sentiment, and measure. The reader may judge of the truth of these observations from a few specimens. The first we shall take from the picture of the Utility of Poetry; in which the author endeavours to claim religion as a theme for the Muse:

In vain would critics, ev'n of highest name *,
The sacred Muse's dignity defame;

To aid Devotion's task her pow'r deny,
And to the ground her grov'ling pinions tie.

In vain to her impute the faults of those

Who woo'd her smiles, but woo'd in rhyming prose;
Who, wanting wings of energy and might,

Would fain have soar'd to some unusual height,

But dropt immediate down, and clos'd their shameful flight.
Thus on that creeping, dull, presumptuous race,
And not on her, redounds the dire disgrace.
What wonder then, if Waller's feeble tongue,
To childish love, and courtly trifles, strung,
Sunk, when he tried his slender voice to raise
Beneath the weight of Love's celestial praise +.
Or what if Cowley, whose outrageous wit
Could ne'er to judgment or to taste submit,
Disgrac'd the theme he labour'd to adorn,
And made his David's tale the critic's scorn?
It was not thus, when Milton's voice began
To sing of Eden lost by guilty man :
Him on her wings celestial rapture bore
To heights which mortal never reach'd before:

let us, in haste, proceed,

Till we the Portico of Pallas reach;

In which, besides my ordinary band
Of pupils, I expect to-day to find

One who has long been absent from that school.
Young Alcibiades was to be there

An hour ere noon.'

Their steps were now

Directed to the Forum; where a crowd

Already was assembled.'

&c. &c.

*See Dr. Johnson's strictures on this subject in his Life of Waller. Lives of the Poets, Vol. I. p. 397, &c.'

+ Waller's Poem on Divine Love is here alluded to.'

See Johnson's Critique on the Davideis in his Life of Cowley.'

Heav'n's

Heav'n's awful splendours to his sight display'd,
And all the horrors of the infernal shade.

It was not thus, when Young, in gloom embow'r'd*,
His nightly song of Lamentation pour'd;
And sought at last, from each domestic grief,
In fair Religion's hopes, a sure relief;

When he display'd Redemption's wond'rous plan,
And prov'd, beyond a doubt, Immortal Man.
What'er in him correcter Taste may blame
'Tis sure no want of Ardour's holy flame.
It was not thus, when Pope's harmonious lyre,
Caught from Isaiah's lips the hallow'd fire +:
Nor thus, when Addison, with polish'd care,
Made Moon and Stars their wond'rous birth declare ‡:
Nor yet when Thomson breath'd his grateful soul
To Him at whose command the Seasons roll,

In that exalted hymn which crowns the finish'd whole.
And still when bards like these, such subjects choose,
No want of vigour shall depress the Muse;

But other Miltons, other Youngs arise,

And lift their raptur'd audience to the skies;
And teach them, soaring on Devotion's wings,

To look contemptuous down on sublunary things.'

}

The following extract is from the Picture of Homer the Rhapsodist: this piece is entirely lyric:

While thus o'er Battle's hateful hues,
He pour'd the splendour of his Muse,
Deck'd with glory's glitt'ring wreath,
Ev'ry savage deed of death,

And ev'ry gaping, ghastly wound,
To Music's richest notes attun'd;

Each youthful bosom caught the infectious rage
That stream'd incessant from his magic lyre,
Some haughty foeman would in thought engage,
And check his fury with their martial fire.

But now to more terrific themes,
To fabling Fancy's wilder dreams,
The pow'rful bard devotes his changing lyre;
In combat vain how Thetis' child
Against the whelming river toil'd,

In darkness I'm embow'r'd;

Delightful gloom.'

Night Thoughts, V. 204.

Pope's Messiah, 6.

Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire.'—

Alluding to his elegant and well known hymn ;

The spacious Firmament on high.'

Till Vulcan, aided with the strength of fire
How Sparta's prince, his fortune to explore,
Enthrall'd the changeful. wizard of the sea;
Heard him, a serpent hiss, a lion roar,
Blaze in a flame, and blossom in a tree t;
The Cyclops' gloomy cave then rose to view,
And all the horrors of his bloody meal;
The blank despair that seiz'd Ulysses' crew,
While in their fellows' fate their own they feel,
Until their dauntless monarch sage,

With hopes of safety, rous'd their rage;
When all with beating hearts drew nigh,
And, on the sleeping monster's eye,
The fiery vengeance sudden taught to fall,
And quench'd, in endless night, his solitary ball ‡,

What next he sung was Circe's sea-girt bow'r,
And how the same undaunted chief
Withstood the charms of magic pow'r,
And to his comrades brought relief;
When all had lost the human face divine,
Transformed by wicked arts to grov'ling swine §.
Then how with vain regret the hero saw,
Betwixt fell Scylla and Charybdis dire,
Crush'd in the wat'ry monsters boiling maw,
Six brave companions wretchedly expire ;

How Fate's command constrains him next to steer
Down to the dusky regions of the dead,

To hold high converse with the Theban seer,
And shows him there his mother's mournful shade,
With many a hero old, and heroine's ghost,
Which glide in shadowy shoals along the dreary coast

While thus the lyre, with heav'nly tongue,
Words of wildest wonder sung,
Each Girl and Boy,

With eager joy,

Around its master fondly hung,

In deep attention to the thrilling strain,

They drank each accent up with eager ear,

And felt, with strange delight, through ev'ry vein,

The chilling progress of the frost of fear."

We should not expect, from the author of this poem, such a couplet as this, which closes one of his compositions :

But lest our readers should their patience lose
Here, for the present, let us balt, oh Muse!'

* Iliad xxi. + Odyssey iv. Odyssey xii. Odyssey xi.'

+ Odyssey ix. § Odyssey

The

The piece on the Madness of Poets is the only one that is written in the measure there adopted; and it seems well fitted for the anecdotes which it retails. For example;

In spite of all this, yet we cannot deny
The Madness of some of the fanciful fry.
Lucretius, for one, an example affords,
Not so easy to clothe in the decentest words;
The hand of his Mistress presented the bowl,
Whose contents quite unsettled his rational soul:
By the succours of art, she desir'd to improve
His natural relish for matters of Love;

Which the reader will see was sufficiently strong,
If he reads the Fourth Book of his wonderful Song.
But the drugs were too fierce for his volatile brains:
The Love is soon quench'd, but the Madness remains
Distraction succeeds to his amorous rage,
And long ere his time drives him off from the Stage
The Bard, who in Epic and Pastoral shin'd,
Had his intellects also by Love undermin'd;
Poor Tasso: who sigh'd for too lofty a Dame,
And reap'd only despair as the fruit of his flame;
Hence that mental disease which reveal'd to his
Such objects as no other mortal could spy;
And brought to him daily, at Lunacy's hour,
That affable Sprite, that invisible Pow'r,

eye

Who convers'd with him long, and, the conference o'er,
Was conducted with all due respect to the door f.

'Lee, too, whose wild flights no discretion could bind,
For the space of four years, was in Bedlam confin'd;
And there to a Scribbler gave that repartee,
Which has oft been recorded, but not yet by me.
Says the Fop to the Bard, in his ill natur'd fun :

"To write like a Madman is easily done."

"Not so," answers Lee, " you are wrong if you please,
But to write like a Fool is the matter of ease ‡."

To accomplish with success a design such as that which Mr. Thomson has conceived, not only considerable poetic talents are requisite, but a fund of classical learning, nice taste, and a discriminating judgment. We think that, with some limitation, Mr. T. has manifested valid claims to these qualities; and that, on the whole, this portion of his work is executed with a degree of ability which intitles it to public patronage.

Such is the account of the death of this Poet, transmitted As in the Eusebian Chronicle.'

+ See all the Lives of Tasso.'

See the Biographia Dramatica, Article Lee.'

ART.