the subject:" we shall therefore take leave to interpret their decisions, as old ladies do their dreams, by contraries; and it seems, on the face of the matter, to be a tolerably safe conclusion, that the Dionysiacs is a su perb poem.

They, indeed, who have exerted their vigilance to guard us against admiring Nonnus with prejudice to Homer, have been able to lay their finger on not a few instances of conceited and puerile taste, similar in kind to those above quoted; but not similar in degree: there is nothing so bad, there can be nothing so bad, in the mass of heterogeneous fables bound together in the Dionysiacal bundle, as Pluto hunting on the banks of Lethe for the ghost of Lazarus. The reason is obvious: the subject is too solemn; too sacredly and momentously interesting to human hopes, for us to admit patiently of mythological common-places being mixed up with it; and the sublimity of the incident itself, recorded, as it is, with a plain circumstantiality that bears the stamp of truth, repels every attempt at officious decoration; even as Samson" brake the seven green withs, as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire." But who would experience any violent sensation of offended taste, should he meet with playful prettinesses of ingenuity, or tumid exaggerations of imagery, when Aura is changed into a fountain, or when the constellations combat against Phaeton? It is a common error in those who pride themselves on a classic simplicity of taste, to exact simplicity where it would be out of character. Darwin has been treated in this way: he has been held up to the terror of all imitators, as a merely physical poet; as purely material in his poetry, without sentiment, and without any feeling for the ideal. To this it may be answer ed, that he turned Botany into a fairy tale; and that he chose the diction and illustrative imagery which were suitable to his plan and congenial with his subject. It was the fairy dress of fairy metaphysics. That he carried the same limited power of picturing to the eye into the regions of sentiment, may be true; but the objection is never levelled against his cold and passionless elegiac pieces: for these, on the contrary, pass cur

rent as pathetic, and are transcribed as such, into those crude repositories of mechanically assorted poetry which are designed to cultivate a classical taste in the minds of youth. It was the Loves of the Plants which they, who pretended to a correct judgment, took upon themselves to condemn, as fantastic in style and meretricious in decoration. This is much the same prudery of taste, as that which swept from the vicinity of the mansion the architectural garden, with its fountains, its statues, and its grottos, and obliged the inmate to step at once, without an intermediate gradation, from the house to the field.

The author of the Dionysiacs has thus experienced the same species of frigid injustice as the authors of the Botanic Garden, and of Thalaba. He has been censured for his tinsel refinement and subtle trifling, as though he were celebrating the unnatural brothers of Thebes, or expounding in lofty verse the principles of the Orphic Theology. Many of the censures which Cuneus has cast upon him would merit the praise of tasteful acumen were they directed against a poet of a different class: but what he sometimes holds up to reprobation, as sins against classical propriety and good sense, appear to me positive beauties, in the relation in which they stand, and in reference to the theme and object of the poet. I shall set down a few instances of this.

Petrus Cunæus asserts the trite axiom that the "beginning of a poem should be gentle, modest, and temperate;" but Samuel Johnson, with his usual sturdy sense, has shown that in this supposed rule Horace is misconceived and Addison mistaken; the pröemial verses of both the Iliad and Odyssey being rather splendid than unadorned. (Rambler, No. 158.) I should be glad to hear from any disciple of Addison what there is superior in magnificent elevation to this passage (among several others similar) in the alleged plain exordium of the Paradise Lost?

Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from

the first

Wast present, and with mighty wings out-
spread,
Dove-like, sat'st brooding o'er the vast abyss,
And madest it pregnant?

WE hear that this tragedy (of which our readers may find the subject in the 7th chapter of the second book of Maccabees) has had a greater success than any which has appeared for a long time on the French stage. We do not wonder at it. The novelty of the subject,--the animation of the dialogue,--the violent conflict between maternal love and religious enthusiasm in the breast of Salomé,-the heroism of her martyred sons,-the suspense in which we are kept as to their fate, their triumphant sufferings,—and the fury of their persecutor Antiochus, terminating in his ownutter consternation and dismay,all this must have agitated the feelings of the audience strongly from beginning to end. At least we know

that so it has been with us on reading it. Yet, with all this, we feel that there is a want of poetry throughout; of which there would be the more right to complain, if it did not pervade all the tragedies we áre acquainted with since the so much celebrated age of Louis XIV. By a want of poetry, we do not mean the absence of fine descriptions of buildings, and groves, and rocks, and sea-views, and moonlight landscapes; but we mean the absence of a powerful metaphoric diction, such as at once testifies the poet's genius,* and is the true index of passion,-such as Aristotle, from his own sagacity, or from the practice of his countrymen, concluded to belong properly to the drama,-and such as Shakspeare, without knowing any thing of Aristotle, or the countrymen of Aristotle, excelled in above all others. It is herein that not only the modern French, but even Italian tragedians, (not excepting Alfieri and

Monti), are miserably deficient. We remember an attempt (we are not sure whether by Voltaire or not) at translating the following words in Hamlet,

The serpent, that did sting thy father's life,

Now wears his crown:
and all that came of it was,-

Enfin, c'est ton oncle!

We are, however, sincerely glad to find the Tragic Muse making any stage. We should have liked to see thing like a stand on the French Mrs. Siddons rushing in upon our own, unable to support the torture them not to shrink from the trial, of her sons, after she had encouraged and uttering some such words as the following:

Non, non, laissez moi fuir.—Dieu ne l'exige

VOL. VI.

That fine exclamation,

Dieu! le sang de mes fils a rejailli sur moi! which stood in no need of explanation, might perhaps have been suggested by a passage in the Polyeucte of Corneille, where Pauline, who has just witnessed the martyrdom of her husband, says to her father,

Son sang, dont tes bourreaux viennent de me couvrir,

me les vient

M'a dessillé les yeux, et d'ouvrir. The Christian martyr of Corneille is not equal to the Jewish ones of M. Guiraud. The sudden transition in Polyeucte, from his love for Pauline to the ambition of martyrdom, is too like an exemplification of that mischievous saying of Voltaire's—

D'amour à la devotion

Il n'est qu'un pas; l'une et l'autre est faiblesse.

M. Guiraud has contrived to support the interest of his play without any love.

As we are here reminded of Corneille, so are we elsewhere of Racine, but not so much to the advantage of the modern. In the character of young Mizaël, he has plainly had his eye on that of Joas in the Athalie, as may be seen by comparing A. 2. Sc. 7. of that tragedy, with A. 1. Sc.3. of the present. But the judgment of Racine could not be expected in so young a writer. One of the first answers of the Hebrew boy to the interrogatories of king Antiochus, when he is asked

Jeune Hébreu, qui es-tu? is

Sans Dieu je ne suis rien, Aussi puissant que vous si je l'ai pour

His subsequent simplicity, in being so easily cajoled by the king to discover the hiding-place of his brothers, is scarcely consistent with the boldness and intelligence manifested in this reply.

The author has contrived artfully enough to introduce the vision of Heliodorus, from the third chapter of Maccabees, b. 2. from which Raphael has taken his picture; but he might surely have made something more of it.

J'allais déjà saisir les vases de l'autel ; Déjà même, à travers la foule gémissante, Mes soldats promenaient la hache menaQuand la voûte du temple, entr' ouverte cante;

soudain,

a

M'a fait voir un guerrier, qui, tout couvert

d'airain,

soutien.