think, with some alteration, copied from Statius. Her young meanwhile Callow and cold, from their moss-woven nest Peep forth; they stretch their little eager throats Broad to the wind, and plead to the lone spray Their famish'd plaint importunately shrill. (English Garden, b. 3.) Volucrum sic turba recentum, Cum reducem longo prospexit in æthere matrem, Ire cupit contra, summâque e margine nidi Extat hians; jam jamque cadat ni pectore toto Obstet aperta parens et amantibus increpet alis. (Theb. lib. x. 458.) Oppian's imitation of this is happier. Ως δ' ὁπότ ̓ ἀπτήνέσσι φέρει βόσιν δορα ταλίχοισι Μήτηρ, εἰαρινὴ Ζεφύρου πρωτάγγελος ὄρνις, Οἱ δ ̓ ἀπαλὸν τρύζοντες ἐπιθρώσκουσι καλι, Γηθόσυνοι περὶ μητρὶ, καὶ ἱμείροντες ἐδωδῆς Χεῖλος ἀναπτύσσουσιν· ἅπαν δ ̓ ἐπὶ δῶμα λέληκεν Ανδρὸς ξεινοδόχοιο λίγα κλάζουσι νεος σᾶις. (Halieut. 1. iii. 248.) Hurd, in the letter he addressed to him on the Marks of Imitation, observed, that the imagery with which the Ode to Memory opens, is borrowed from Strada's Prolusions. The chorus in Elfrida, beginning Hail to thy living light, Ambrosial morn! all hail thy roseate ray: is taken from the Hymnus in Auroram, by Flaminio.* His Sappho, a lyrical drama, is one of the few attempts that have been made to bring amongst us that tuneful trifle, the modern Opera of the Italians. It has been transferred by Mr. Mathias into that language, to which alone it seemed properly to belong. Mr. Glasse has done as much for Caractacus by giving it up to the Greek. Of the two Odes, which are all, excepting some few fragments, that remain to us of the Lesbian poetess, he has introduced TransIations into his drama. There is more glitter of phrase than in the versions made, if I recollect right, by Ambrose Phillips, which are inserted in the Spectator, No. 222 and 229; but much less of that passionate emotion which marks the original. Most of my readers will remember that which begins, Blest as the immortal Gods is he, It is thus rendered by Mason: Rivals in bliss the Gods on high, Whose ear thy pleasing converse warms, Thy lovely smile his eye. But trembling awe my bosom heaves, When placed those heavenly charms among ; The sight my voice of power bereaves, And chains my torpid tongue. Through every thrilling fibre fies The subtle flame; in dimness drear My eyes are veil'd; a murmuring noise Glides tinkling through my ear; Death's chilly dew my limbs o'erspreads, Shiv'ring, convuls'd, I panting lye; And pale, as is the flower that fades, I droop, I faint, I die. The rudest language, in which there was anything of natural feeling, would be preferable to this cold splendour. In the other ode, he comes into contrast with Akenside. But lo! to Sappho's melting airs She smiles, and asks what fonder cares Her suppliant's plaintive measures move. Akenside, b. 1, Ode 13. This, though not unexceptionable, and particularly in the last verse, has yet a tenderness and spirit utterly wanting in Mason. What from my power would Sappho claim? Disdains to yield thee joy for joy? * A translation of this will be found at page 77, of the present number. In the Pygmalion, a lyrical scene, he has made an effort equally vain, to represent the impassioned eloquence of Jean Jaques Rousseau. In his shorter poems, there is too frequent a recurrence of the same machinery, and that, such as it needed but little invention to create. Either the poet himself, or some other person, is introduced, musing by a stream or lake, or in a forest, when the appearance of some celestial visitant, muse, spirit, or angel, suddenly awakens his attention. Soft gleams of lustre tremble through the And sacred airs of minstrelsy divine nions move. Ah, hark! a voice, to which the vocal rill, The lark's extatic harmony is rude; Distant it swells with many a holy trill, Now breaks wide warbling from yon orient cloud.-Elegy 2. And, In the thirteenth Ode, on the late Duchess of Devonshire, the only lady of distinguished rank to whom the poets of modern times have loved to pay their homage, and in the sixteenth, which he entitles Palinodia, he provokes a comparison with Mr. Coleridge. One or two extracts from each will show the difference between the artificial heat of the schools and the warmth of a real enthusiasm. Art thou not she whom fav'ring fate A mortal might be blest? Their blessings on her darling shed Give to thy love th' illustrious head. Mason. Light as a dream, your days their circlets ran, From all that teaches brotherhood to man But hark! methinks I hear her hallow'd Far, far removed; from want, from hope, from fear, Enchanting music lull'd your infant ear, Obeisant praises sooth'd your infant heart: Emblasonments and old ancestral crests, With many a bright obtrusive form of art, Detain'd your eye from nature; stately vests, That veiling strove to deck your charms divine, Were your's unearn'd by toil. Coleridge. Ode to Georgiana, Say did I err, chaste Liberty, When, round thy twin-born sister's shrine And blend in one their fresh perfume; Their fragrance and their bloom? Mason. Ye clouds, that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may controul ! Ye ocean waves, that, wheresoe'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws! The angel's floating pomp, the seraph's Ye woods, that listen to the night-birds glowing grace; And he too, instead of that gravity and depth of tone which might seem most accordant to his subjects, treats them with a lightness of pencil that is not far removed from flimsiness. The Elegy written in a churchyard in South Wales, is not more below Gray's. Of eagerness to obtain poetical distinction he had much more than learning, was exceedingly his infeGray; but in tact, judgment, and rior. He was altogether a man of talent, if I may be allowed to use the word talent according to the sense it bore in our old English; for he had a vehement desire of excellence, but wanted either the depth of mind or the industry that was necessary for producing anything that was very excellent. ON MAGAZINE WRITERS. Methinks I hear, in accents low, I can scarcely conceive a nobler and more inspiring sight than that of the man of genius in the solitude of his closet, conscious of his powers, and warmed by the fire of his conceptions-pouring forth those treasures of imagination and intellect which are to enrich, exalt, and delight future ages. It is a spectacle of unmingled gratification, which raises our ideas of human powers, and sublimes them by the reflection that those powers are exerted for the benefit of universal man-unalloyed by any mean and sordid interests, and uninfluenced by any but the generous impulses of hope and love. There is another picture of the occupations of genius or what would be thought genius-which we are sometimes admitted to view, and though far less interesting it is still inexpressibly amusing. I mean that of a young and unfledged author surrounded with all the equipage of his profession;the fair sheet spread open before him, the pen freshly nibbed, the inkstand constructed after Mr. Coleridge's newest receipt-his brain throbbing with confused conceptions-his ambition all on fire to achieve something "which the world will not willingly let die"-his brows aching with the pressure of imagined laurels-and his fancy, like that of the strange but gifted enthusiast Cellini, dazzled by "resplendent lights hovering over his shadow."-Most men, I suspect, have at some period of their lives seen those visions of glory play before their eyes, and revelled in the homage which their toils were to exact from ages yet unborn. For my own part, I should be ashamed to deny what there is no shame in avowing. My early experience, some five and twenty years ago, as a magazine writer, when magazines were quite another sort of thing, furnished many such moods of mind and body, and though years, by making me "a sadder, but a wiser man," have long since struck me from the list of scribblers, yet I can still recognise the excitement of literary glory on a youthful mind, and enter into its imaVOL. VI. P? ginations and hopes. Every one is more or less impressed with a consciousness of acquirement and ability, and is uneasy until he has obtained the reputation of possessing them. Hence the vast number of candidates for literary fame, who throng about the several channels of publicity. In one of these outlets by which overcharged brains free themselves from their burthen-and by which brains of a contrary description would gladly satisfy their wild ambition, it may not be misplaced or unacceptable to make a few remarks upon those writers who are, and those who wish to be writers for magazines. The first great difficulty which presents itself is the selection of a subject. "The world is all before him where to choose." But in the midst of abundance he knows not what to select; like the sapient beast in the fable between the two bundles of hay, he is perplexed by contending claims. He sees a mass of things, but nothing distinctly. Shall he be merry or sad ;-shall he fathom the depths of the mind, or sport lightly over the surface of things-shall it be a sketch, or a finished work-a disquisition, or a rhapsody?-all varieties of topics are before him, and, as he conceives, equally obedient to his will; but he knows not which to evoke from its repose into light and life-and devote to earthly immor tality by enshrining it in some one of the thousand monthly temples of fame. "It is here!" said Barry, striking his forehead, after a long meditation; "it is not here," the scribbler, using a similar gesture. This perplexity springs from an obvious source. The writer sits down to compose-not because his brain labours in the parturition of some long meditated matter-not because he has reflected deeply, and acquired much-but he is feverish with some vague longing after literary notoriety. He resolves to write before he has learned to think. Having never subdued the straggling denizens of his brain to any thing like obedience, they refuse to be commanded-and C says having never made the knowledge of others his own by long and habitual meditation-nothing is clear and fixed-his ideas float in an atmosphere of confusion, out of which he is still earnest To frame he knows not what excelling things, And win he knows not what sublime reward Of praise and wonder. But writing is not "as easy as lying." The pen, it is true, is an eloquent instrument which may be made to "discourse most excellent music;" yet something more is requisite to draw forth its notes, than the bare will to make it vocal. Some are thus, in the very outset of their career, discouraged by the difficulty of choice; they give up the pursuit in despair, and suffer the glowing visions of futurity to fade into the light of common day. After all they may be right. There is more prudence in relinquishing an enterprize too vast for our capacity, than in continuing to scribble on "in spite of nature and our stars." But there is another and a large class, which, undaunted by difficulty, uninstructed by experience, and unabashed by ridicule, still bear up against every sort of obstacle, "bating no jot of heart or hope." These, with some pretensions to erudition, and some habit of reflection-assist to swell out the pages of reviews and magazines, those foundling hospitals for the bastard progeny of prurient imaginations. They buzz for a while about the fields of literature, loud, busy and importunate-till some chilling blast or rude hand sweeps them away for ever, leaving behind cotal vestigio Qual fummo in aere ed in acqua la schiuma. Every one at all conversant-and who is not?-with this class of publications, must be aware of the immense change which has taken place in them" for better for worse" within twenty or thirty years. They have in some respects followed, in others formed, that part of the public taste which depends on the public manners. They have changed their place in the system of literature. Emerging from the shell with which they were encrusted, they display their "gaily gilded trim" soaring aloft into higher spheres, and venturing into regions, the terra incognita of other times. This is partly owing to the wider dispersion of letters, but chiefly, I think, to the liberality of publishers, which has made it not unworthy the very highest names in English literature to contribute to magazines. It is not of these that I am now speaking, but of a very different class. The style has undergone a change as well as the subject. If we are no longer bored with endless and heavy allegories about Asem the Manhater, the Hill of Science, and the Happy Valley, so no one who courted even an insertion in a magazine would venture to begin "Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope, who, &c. &c." It might be amusing to conjecture who of the elder essayists would be popular writers in the magazines of the Addison, of course, present day. but less so, I think, than Steele. Johnson, notwithstanding the habitual elevation of his sentiments, and the justice and acuteness of most of his remarks upon life and manners, would stand but a poor chance of an engagement if he retained the ponderous armour, and heavy jack boot march of the Rambler. The bowwow manner which gave a zest to his conversation cannot be printed with any types that I am acquainted with. Goldsmith was more at home in his humanities—and, together with his exhilarating gaiety and touching pathos, he had a fine conception of the ridiculous, and great tact in exposing it. He would be eagerly snapped at by an editor, especially if all his articles were as clever as Beau Tibbs, the Strolling Actor, and the Lame Sailor. Bonnel Thornton, and the elder Colman, might be worked up into prime hands, and the playful, abundant, and well toned wit of Horace Walpole would have famously "furnished forth" the epistolary corner of a popular magazine. As for the other "daily bread" writers of the last century, it may be doubted whether much could have been got out of them. It may be easily conceived that to manage a magazine is no easy task. It is not for me to prate of war to Hannibal; but it may be conceded to one who |