To Gloriana Waller's harp was strung;
The queen still shines, because the poet sung.
Ev'n all those graces, in your frame combined,
The common fate of mortal charms may find,
(Content our short-lived praises to engage,
The joy and wonder of a single age,)
Unless some poet in a lasting song
To late posterity their fame prolong,
Instruct our sons the radiant form to prize,
And see your beauty with their fathers' eyes.
PICTURE OF THE KING.
KNELLER, with silence and surprise
We see Britannia's monarch rise,
A godlike form, by thee displayed
In all the force of light and shade;
And, awed by thy delusive hand,
As in the presence-chamber stand.
The magic of thy art calls forth
His secret soul and hidden worth,
His probity and mildness shows,
His care of friends and scorn of foes:
In every stroke, in every line,
Does some exalted virtue shine,
And Albion's happiness we trace
Through all the features of his face.
Oh may I live to hail the day,
When the glad nation shall survey
Their sovereign, through his wide command,
Passing in progress o'er the land!
Each heart shall bend, and every voice
In loud applauding shouts rejoice,
Whilst all his gracious aspect praise,
And crowds grow loyal as they gaze.
This image on the medal placed,
With its bright round of titles graced,
And stampt on British coins, shall live,
To richest ores the value give,
Or, wrought within the curious mould,
Shape and adorn the running gold.
To bear this form, the genial sun
Has daily, since his course begun,
Rejoiced the metal to refine,
And ripened the Peruvian mine.
Thou, Kneller,1 long with noble pride,
The foremost of thy art, hast vied
With nature in a generous strife,
And touched the canvass into life.
Thy pencil has, by monarchs sought,
From reign to reign in ermine wrought,
And, in their robes of state arrayed,
The kings of half an age displayed.
Here swarthy Charles appears, and there
His brother with dejected air:
Triumphant Nassau here we find,
And with him bright Maria joined;
There Anna, great as when she sent
Her armies through the continent,
Ere yet her hero was disgraced:
Oh may famed Brunswick be the last,
(Though heaven should with my wish agree,
And long preserve thy art in thee,)
The last, the happiest British king,
Whom thou shalt paint, or I shall sing!
Wise Phidias, thus his skill to prove,
Through many a god advanced to Jove,
And taught the polished rocks to shine
With airs and lineaments divine;
Till Greece, amazed, and half afraid,
The assembled deities surveyed.
Great Pan, who wont to chase the fair,
And loved the spreading oak, was there;
Thou, Kneller.] If this little poem had begun here, and ended with "their king defied," it had been equal, or superior, to anything in any other poet, on the like occasion.
2 There never was anything happier than this whole illustration, nor more exquisitely expressed.
Old Saturn too, with up-cast eyes,
Beheld his abdicated skies;
And mighty Mars, for war renowned,
In adamantine armour frowned;
By him the childless goddess rose,
Minerva, studious to compose
Her twisted threads; the web she strung,
And o'er a loom of marble hung:
Thetis, the troubled ocean's
queen,
Matched with a mortal, next was seen,
Reclining on a funeral urn,
Her short-lived darling son to mourn.
The last was he, whose thunder slew
The Titan race, a rebel crew,
That, from a hundred hills allied
In impious leagues, their king defied.
This wonder of the sculptor's hand
Produced, his art was at a stand:
For who would hope new fame to raise,
Or risk his well-established praise,
That, his high genius to approve,
Had drawn a GEORGE, or carved a Jove!
THE following Latin poems are, in their kind, excellent. They are the better worth reading, as they show with what care our young author had studied the prince of the Latin poets; and from what source he afterwards derived, what a certain writer calls, a little whimsically indeed, but, I think, not unhappily, his sweet Virgilian prose. This Virgilianism, if I may so speak, consists in opening a subject by degrees; in presenting it, first, in few and simple terms, and then enlarging and brightening it by a more distinct and exquisite expression, till the description becomes as it were full-blown, and is set before us in all its grace and beauty. With this gradual extension of a sentiment, or image, is joined an improvement in the rhythm. The ear is consulted, as well as the imagination; and the harmony of numbers keeps pace with the energy of expression. It is remarkable that Mr. Addison's studious imitation of Virgil's manner hurt his English poetry sometimes, though it always improved his English
prose. The reason was, he had no facility in rhyming; and so was obliged many times to take up with a weaker word or phrase, than its place in his verse required. Hence the frequent redundancies in his rhymed poetry, which were intended by him as amplifications. prose, he was under no such restraint; and his exact taste always led him to perfection. That this observation is just, we may see from his Cato, where the freedom of blank verse, as it is called, secured him from this mischance; and from these Latin poems, in which the Virgilian gradation is everywhere observed, and nicely imitated.
CAROLO MONTAGU, ARMIGERO,
SCACCHARII CANCELLARIO, ÆRARII PRÆFECTO,
REGI A SECRETIORIBUS CONSILIIS, ETC.
CUM tanta auribus tuis obstrepat vatum nequissimorum turba, nihil est cur queraris aliquid inusitatum tibi contigisse, ubi præclarum hoc argumentum meis etiam numeris violatum conspexeris. Quantum virtute bellica præstent Britanni, recens ex rebus gestis testatur gloria; quam vero in humanioribus pacis studiis non emineamus, indicio sunt quos nuper in lucem emisimus versiculi. Quod si CONGREVIUS ille tuus divino, quo solet, furore correptus materiam hanc non exornasset, vix tanti esset ipsa pax, ut illa lætaremur tot perditissimis poetis tam misere decantata. At, dum alios insector, mei ipsius oblitus fuisse videor, qui haud minores forsan ex Latinis tibi molestias allaturus sum, quam quas illi ex vernaculis suis carminibus attulerunt ; nisi quod inter ipsos cruciatus lenimentum aliquod dolori tribuat tormenti varietas. Nec quidem unquam adduci possem, ut poema patrio sermone conscriptum oculis tuis subjicerem, qui ab istis conatibus cæteros omnes scribendo non minus deterres, quam favendo excitaveris.
Humanitatis Tuæ
Cultor devotissimus,
JOSEPHUS ADDISON.
PAX GULIELMI AUSPICIIS EUROPE
POSTQUAM ingens clamorque virum, strepitusque tubarum,
Atque omnis belli cecidit fragor; aspice, Cæsar,
Quæ tibi soliciti, turba importuna, poetæ
Munera deducunt: generosa a pectore flammæ,
Diræque armorum effigies, simulachraque belli
Tristia diffugiant: O tandem absiste triumphis
Expletus, penitusque animo totum excute Martem.
Non ultra ante oculos numeroso milite campi
Miscentur, solito nec fervent arva tumultu;
Stat circum alta quies, curvoque innixus aratro
Desertas fossas, et castra minantia castris
Rusticus invertit, tacita formidine lustrans
Horroremque loci, et funestos stragibus agros.
Jamque super vallum et munimina longa virescit
Expectata seges, jam propugnacula rident
Vere novo; insuetos mirabitur incola culmos,
Luxuriemque soli, et turgentem a sanguine messem.
Aspicis ut toto excitus venit advena mundo
Bellorum invisens sedem, et confusa ruinis
Oppida, et eversos flammarum turbine muros !
Ut trepidos rerum Annales, tristemque laborum
Inquirit seriem, attonitis ut spectat ocellis
Semirutas turres, et adhuc polluta cruore
Flumina, famososque Ormondi volnere campos!
Hic, ubi saxa jacent disperso infecta cerebro,
Atque interruptis hiscunt divortia muris,
Vexillum intrepidus1 fixit, cui tempora dudum
Budenses palmæ, peregrinaque laurus obumbrat.
Ille ruens aciem in mediam, qua ferrea grando
Sparsa furit circum, et plumbi densissimus imber,
Sulphuream noctem, tetrasque bitumine nubes
Ingreditur, crebroque rubentem fulgure fumum.
Ut vario anfractu, et disjectis undique saxis
Mænia discedunt, scopulisque immane minantur
Desuper horrificis, et formidabile pendent!
Honoratissimus D. Dominus CUTTS, Baro de Gowran, &c.
|
