dels, while Dante was forgotten; and the revival of his fame has occasioned the establishment of new rules for poetry. In a manuscript of Petrarch, published by Ubaldini, there is a single line, in which we find forty-four alterations made in various days, and even years; for Petrarch marked, on the margin of his manuscripts, not only the years, but the months, days and hours, when he retouched his poems. text. The changes in this verse do not appear to the common reader essential either to the thought, the expression, or the harmony. Yet so, on a calm revisal, the poet must have considered them. Every man familiar with the art must perceive, that, during these changes, the heart, the head and the ear of the writer, must have performed many operations. The business of the critic is to discover the reasons which determined the poet finally to fix on the line as it now stands in his printed But how difficult it is to find these reasons! and yet, how can the beauty of the verse be explained without them? If we had the manuscript, with the various alterations of the noblest passages of great poets, something might doubtless be done. We have in our possession, the variations in a very fine stanza of Ariosto, which he altered a hundred times. If we should ever have occasion to speak of that poet, we shall avail ourselves of these alterations to illustrate his manner of writing. But, in the other fine stanzas, which seem as if they flowed from inspiration, his mind must have gone through a like progress, though so rapidly, that he was himself almost unconscious of its action. The verses of great poets are always the result of a long series of thoughts, emotions, remembrances and images, compared, combined, rejected or selected. The strength, the quickness, and the number of impressions made on the mind; the promptitude of recollection; the facility of combining fact with feeling and thought, together with the powers of comparison and selection, constitute the greater part of what is called Genius. A man of genius seems to be inspired, because his mental operations are so much more rapid than those of other men. To develop the beauties of a poem, the critic must go through the same reasonings and judgments which ultimately determined the poet to write as he has done. But such a critic would be a poet. His ardent and impatient genius would never submit to the cold labour of criticism. Such a man might, however, analyze some passages, and at least describe the sensations with which he had himself perused them; which must surpass, in depth and vivacity, the sensations of an unpoetical mind. Johnson laughs at the notion, that a poet is to be published only by a poet; 'and, in what relates to emendation, and grammatical or explanatory notes, he is certainly right. Critics may assist us in ge neralities; but, when we come to particulars, which are the soul of poetry, their aid becomes of little value. Great poets concentrate their ideas, and embody their feelings in images. Critics take them to pieces, in order to ascertain their texture. Poets, who are also critics, often exhibit a strange mixture of analysis and imagery. We shall not enter into the question, whether Pope had most taste or genius. Perhaps he was destined by nature for bold invention; but in fact he has, in general, imitated with taste. The same thing may be said of Horace, Vida, and Boileau. Pope, like them, was a critic as well as a poet. It is a curious observation, that no poct of the first rank has ever spoken of the mechanism of his art, while poets of inferior station have laboriously displayed its rules in verse. Pindar declares, that a great poet, like the eagle, soars by his natural strength, and leaves beneath him the ignoble birds who seem to animate each other by their hoarse cries.' Horace, on the contrary, is always teaching us how the wings are to be managed. Pope lived in the philosophical age of Bayle and Locke; and English poetry, after shining forth in the originality of Shakespeare, having combined the genius of the Greek, Latin, and Italian classics in Milton, and having displayed its various treasures in Dryden, began to form itself upon the models of the French school. Among the French poets, imagery and feeling are smothered by reflection. Pope could not resist his habit of analysis, even in the translation of Homer, who, of all poets, is least disposed to turn aside to speculate. Perhaps these deviations of Pope from the character of his author, have contributed to the popularity of the English Iliad. But it is not here our object to censure the taste of various ages and nations. It is enough for us to prove, in fact, that Homer, Virgil, and Dante, have, in their pictures, left much to the imagination of the reader; that it is easy to feel their beauties, and very difficult to analyze them; and that, when poetry is made by system, it may display artificial beauties,-but those of nature disappear. In the scene where Venus leads Helen to Paris, Homer shows his knowledge of the heart of a woman agitated by a passion which she strives in vain to conquer. Helen regrets her family, and is ashamed of her situation. She resists the suggestions of Venus, bitterly bewails the infamy of her condition, and warmly desires to return to her husband, though she expects only the contempt of Greece. Venus tells her that her return would not heal the animositics between Grecce and Asia; that war would still continue; and that Helen herself would perish by a cruel death. It is after this dialogue that Helen, wrapped up in her veil, follows the goddess in silence. The reader is left to feel the struggles of this woman's reason against her passion. Homer does not explain them. He contents himself with saying, at the beginning of the dialogue, that as soon as Helen heard of the danger of Paris, and was reminded of his beauty, her heart was moved; and that, when she discovered that it was Venus who spoke to her, she was seized with fright She spoke, and Helen's secret soul was moved; She scorn'd the champion, but the man she loved. ' The first line of this couplet is in Homer, and only tells the fact. The second is added by Pope, to explain the intention of Helen and Homer. But the whole interest of the succeed ing dialogue vanishes with this explanation. The passion of Helen becomes that of a libertine; and her remonstrances against the counsels of Venus seem gross hypocrisy. But the True Helen of Homer, throughout the Iliad, is considered as a woman, who, by her beauty, approaches the divinity. The gods, in forming so beautiful a creature, ordain that she should be admired with a species of adoration. The war, and the evils of which she is the cause, are attributed to the will of Heaven. Homer puts these sentiments into the mouth of Priam, rendered the most unfortunate of men by the war, and no longer of an age to be moved by beauty. Not a murmur is mentioned of the Trojans or of the Greeks against the source of their woes. Her husband laments her fate; and old Nestor, not moved by the same sentiments, speaks of her with the same pity. Paris declares that he had, like a pirate, carried her from Sparta. She never seems to open her mouth without a blush. It was a character very difficult to be painted. Homer has employed in the picture the utmost delicacy of pencil, and the deepest knowledge of human nature. When she bewails the death of Hector, she says, He never reproached me;-he hindered others from reproaching me.' A sublime sentiment, which describes at once the noble character of Hector, and all the remorse of the soul of Helen. She lives with Paris, from a sort of union of fatality and despair. She loves him; but she desires to escape from him. Her character in the Odyssey agrees with this representation of her in the Iliad. The Helen of Homer is always the same. The reasonings of the critics make her different from herself. The slightest change in delicate features destroys the physiognomy 'She scorned the champion, but the man she loved.' This is the illicit love of a modern lady of fashion; but it is not that of the amorous queen whom Homer saw in his imagination, and perhaps partly also in the manners of his age. Obello, justifying himself against the charge of having seduced Desdemora, tells the Senate, She loved me for the dangers I had past, And I loved her that she did pity them. He tells the fact, and adds the simple reflection which immediately flows from experience and feeling. In such passages, it is impossible to contemplate without astonishment the genius of Shakespeare, which veils the depth of his observation by the simplicity of nature. The passage is thus translated by DelilleElle aimoit mes malheurs; moi j'aimais ses larmes, L'Amour et la Pitié confondoient ses charmes. ' Shakespeare seems only to give to Othello the characteristic features of a savage hero, who repays, with all his affection, those who love and admire him, and with all his vengeance those who betray or despise him. The Senate understood Othello. It may be doubted whether they would have understood, or at least felt the cold generalities which make the metaphysical commentary of Delille. Yet the readers of most of the capitals of Europe, at this day, would probably prefer the couplet of Delille. Of all the translators of Dante with whom we are acquainted, Mr Cary is the most successful; and we cannot but consider his work as a great acquisition to the English reader. It is executed with a fidelity almost without example; and, though the measure he has adopted, conveys no idea of the original stanza, it is perhaps the best for his purpose, and what Dante himself would have chosen, if he had written in English and in a later day. The reasons, which influenced the mind of cur own Milton would most probably have determined the author of the Inferno. Some years ago, Mr Hayley published a translation of the three first Cantos of that Poem, in which he endeavoured to give an idea of Dante's peculiar manner, by introducing his triple rhyme. It was written with a considerable degree of spirit and elegance; but we cannot much regret that he proceeded no further. The difficulties which he had to encounter were almost insurmountable; at least he has led us to think so, by his many deviations from the text. Of these there is a remarkable instance in the third Canto. When the poet enters in at the gate, his ears are instantly assailed by a multitude of dismal sounds, among which he distinguishes 'Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle.' Voices deep and hoarse, With hands together smote." The last circumstance, the most striking of them all, is entirely passed over by Mr Hayley. Mr Pope himself indeed, could furnish many a parallel from his far-famed translations; and one of his most flagrant transgressions has never, to our knowledge, been pointed out. Penelope, in the Odyssey, (XIX. 597. and XXIII. 19.), twice mentions Troy, the source of all her misfortunes, in a manner the most natural and affecting, giving to that city the epithet of bad, and describing it as a place not to be named, though, in the hurry of her grief, she herself has just named it. A circumstance so beautiful and characteristic could not well be overlooked; but no notice is taken of it by the translator. Cowper asserts it as his opinion, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible;' and we must confess that we have never seen one. A translator has no occasion to forge fetters for himself. He has enough to wear already; and, do what he will, they will for ever weigh him down. Mr Pope attempted to cover his with flowers; but he could not conceal them. Sometimes, indeed, he throws them off altogether; but then he ceases to be a translator of Homer. No adventitious ornament-no invention can supply the place of truth and exactness to him who wants to know how men thought and felt in past ages. Who would consent to exchange the story of Joseph and his Brethren, as it is told in our Bibles, for the most elegant version of it by Mr Pope? Of such offences we cannot accuse Mr Cary. Throughout he discovers the will and the power to do justice to his author. He has omitted nothing, he has added nothing; and though here and there his inversions are ungraceful, and his phrases a little obsolete, he walks not unfrequently by the side of his master, and sometimes perhaps goes beyond him. We may say in the language of that venerable Father of Italian Poetry, Hor ti riman, lector, sopral tuo banco: Paradiso X. Now rest thee, reader! on thy bench, and muse So shall delight make thee not feel the toil.' Perhaps there is no description so sublime in the Purgatory, as that of the discovery and expulsion of the Serpent in the Eighth Canto. How delightfully it opens with that passage from which Gray has borrowed the first line of his Elegy! Now was the hour that wakens fond desire In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful hearts, |
