they were borrowed. One difference between Shakespeare and other poets is, the Warwickshire bard was a good naturalist; and all his metaphors taken from nature are very correct in their parts, as well as very beautiful in their structure and application. Of Shakespeare we may truly sing, in the lines of a modern poet : Hail! glorious Bard, whose high command While joins and mixes to thy hand At once the bold and tender lay. Not mighty Homer down Parnassus steep Rolls the full tide of verse so clear, and yet so deep. T. Warton and Gray. It may be wondered, that in the excellent comparison between these two poetical and learned men, their Latin poetry was omitted, being subjects in which they most approached towards each other's merits. The Latin specimens of Gray and Warton are delightful: the fragment, "De Principiis Cogitandi," of the former, and the "Mons Catharina," of the latter writer, have more perspicuity and ease than their compo sitions in their own language. Gray's verses on the "Chartreuse" will not be degraded by a com See Memoirs of the Life, &e, of T. Warton, by R. Mant, M.A. 1802. parison with Warton's Latin inscriptions. To carry on the comparison of these elegant and ingenious scholars, we must prefer the comic muse of Warton to that of Gray. The "Long Story" cannot be compared with the "Progress of Discontent," of Warton. Gray's attempt at humour frequently failed in success; and humour seems the faculty in which Warton highly excelled, as may be seen in the specimens of his, in the "Oxford Sausage," and in some papers of the "Connoisseur." T. Warton possessed all the humour of the Dean of St. Patrick's, without his grossness or indelicacy. Female Garrulity. The Archbishop of Cambray, in his treatise on "Female Education,*" enters into the reasons why women are so talkative. "First," says the prelate, women are too often indulged in romantic friendships, accustomed to excessive compliments and flatteries, and jealousies among one another. Accustomed to cousider a facility of talking as a proof of genius, they discourse on trifles with unmeasurable length; and, fond of trifles, they neither pay attention to select their subjects, or to the true method of conversing, viz. to say a * 1.' Education des Filles. 12mc. Amsterdam, 1708. VOL. II. K great deal in few words; and to be nice in the subjects on which they harangue. Secondly, women are brought up with too much art and finesse, which they apply to all their schemes and fancies. Now these plans are carried on in a roundabout manner, as women are naturally timid and shamefaced, and so become actresses in all they do, and most eloquent orators on whatever topic is near their heart, besides the facility with which they can call tears to their assistance, &c." Talent for Satire. Young persons of lively parts, and inexperienced in life and characters, are very lavish of their censures on men and things. They soon, however, (if the lively blossoms of their youth set in the fruit of their understanding,) discover that a very small degree of wit is sufficient to find fault, and utter abuse. A little wit, with a convenient share of ill-nature, will enable a man to be satirical; but it requires a good deal of sense to praise worthy objects, as in such there is a great quantity of matter of the best sort, and they require commensurate abilities and judgment to give them their share and kind of encomium. The last resource of ignorance is a sneer, when the person is conscious he can give no answer; and herein the intended satire falls on the feeble attempt to be satirical. Boileau said to his friend Racine, one day, "You say things that hurt me, not from the power with which they are uttered, but by an intention you shew to be satirical." Metaphors. It seems very incorrect, in so polished a writer as Mr. Pope, to have composed the following metaphor on no rational grounds : A little learning is a dangerous thing. Art of Criticism. This process is not true, if said of water, in the sense of intoxication; nor of wine, in any view. It seems, therefore, that the tralatitious meaning is grounded upon no foundation whatever. It may be supposed, by him who denounces waterdrinking poets, that the Pierian spring had some enlivening quality, unknown to other waters. Poetry and Prose. We often see in prose writers a very lively fancy displayed in a variety of poetical figures; and in many productions of poetical, or rather versifying, authors a total want of a proper quantity of metaphors and tropes to distinguish their compositions from those of prose. Lord Bacon, Dr. Johnson, Burke, and Gibbon (though an historian), deal in all the brilliant materials that make composition poetical, and exhibit the close alliance between rhetoric and poetry, and shew What thin partitious do their bounds divide. Study of Nature. Pope. He who has no relish for a walk into the country in a fine day, has not cultivated the rich domains which imagination would bestow on him. He who flies to the fields from his study, either to avoid fatigue of business, or the probable visits of dull and irksome companions, on his first step from his home, feels a burden taken from his shoulders; his mind becomes elastic on a sudden; and he feels the truth of the Poet's lines The meanest flow'ret of the vale, To him are opening Paradise. Grammar. Gray. The early and late attention to the science of grammar can only find objections in the mind of How much of real knowledge a blockhead. |