would have made that necessity their choice.' Owing to this state of the times their labors were unassisted, but they were not retarded by indifference or neglect on the part of their countrymen on the contrary, they were stimulated to exertion by every honor which a generous people could pay. The successful cultivator of the fine arts was second only to the statesman or the warrior; and he who like Æschylus was today triumphant in the field, was to-morrow scarce less ambitious of the poetic garland at the games. Circumstanced then as the Greeks were, without models to imitate, with great talents of their own, and with every incitement to cultivate them, they might be expected to impress upon their writings a character of originality, which succeeding Poets could scarcely attain. For though to inferior minds this intellectual desertion would have been a barrier to all excellence; yet where there is a generous nature, solitude is not more useful to fix and consolidate the moral character, than to excite and unfold the genius. In the persons for whom the Grecian Poets wrote, we view another striking peculiarity of their case, which must have had a great influence upon their works. They lived in a nation universally devoted to the fine arts, and would therefore expect readers of every class. In such a situation the only hope of success must have been to produce somewhat alike adapted to all; which, while it arrested the attention and delighted the taste of the highest orders of society, should be almost equally intelligible and interesting to the mechanic or the mariner. The result of this would necessarily be, to discard from their minds all undue attention to temporary caprice and refinement; to lead them to seek and fix upon those grand and universal principles of good writing, which solicit not admiration from a studied respect to some prevailing and fashionable taste, but claim it on the paramount title of natural and unchangeable excellence.2 'Pindar has nobly expressed their feelings upon this subject, σοφὸς ὁ πολ λὰ εἰδὼς φυᾷ. Μαθόντες δὲ, λάβροι Παγγλωσσία, κόρακες ως, *Ακραντα γαρυέμεν, Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνιχα θεῖον. Olymp. Od. 2. · Κάλλει μὲν γὰρ ἕκαστον εὐθὺς ἦν τότε ἀρχαῖον, ἀκμῇ δὲ μέχρι νῦν πρόσφατόν ἐστι καὶ νεουργόν· οὕτως ἐπανθεί τις καινότης ἀεὶ ἄθικτον ὑπὸ τοῦ χρόνου διατηροῦσα τὴν ὄψιν, ὥσπερ ἀειθαλές πνεῦμα καὶ ψυχὴν ἀγήρω καταμεμιγμένην τῶν ἔργων ἐχόντων. PLUTARCH. This beautiful description of the public works of Pericles, may be applied with scarce less beauty to the poetry of his countrymen. In both these respects the situation of the Latin Poets was widely different, and far less favorable both to the originality of their thoughts, and the vigorous simplicity of their expression. They wrote at a time when the happiest models of their art were already before them; and in a country where the great works of the Grecian masters were not only known, but, having been handed down with the consenting admiration of antiquity, were valued as just criterions of all succeeding excellence.' Among the Romans, too, a life of literary and elegant pursuits was never in very high estimation. Nothing can prove this more decidedly, than the very frequent occasion Cicero takes to apologize for such a course of life, which at Athens even in her busiest and happiest days would have ranked among the most useful and honorable.2 Most of the Roman poetry also was written either to express gratitude to a patron, or to court favor from a prince; or at all events, it was well understood, that the great body of readers would be of Patrician rank, and therefore it might reasonably be feared that the style would be in too close conformity with Patrician taste. But notwithstanding these unfavorable circumstances, the Latin Poets enjoyed some great and peculiar advantages above the Greeks. The age of the earlier Grecian Poets was an age of comparatively moral darkness; and it is not without reason that Plato and Plutarch complain of this defect in Homer himself. Most of his brightest characters are tarnished by the darkest vices; and the hero, who on one occasion delights us with noble sentiments or brave exploits, is discovered in the sequel to be the victim of envy, resentment, or lust. It is true that these were more the errors of the times than of the Poet: but to whatever cause we ascribe it, from these errors the Roman Poets are free. And if their characters are generally less original and less sublime; it will be some compensation if we should find them such as we can contemplate with less ardent pleasure indeed, but more unmixed approbation. It was long before the Poets florished at Rome, that the great Critic of antiquity had collected from the writings of his countrymen those principles of taste, which no nation can possess without so much improvement to its Poetry, as to produce order where there would have been confusion, and unity instead of incoherence and digression. In their days, too, the Vos exemplaria Græca, &c. 2 See Sallust also. Critical Art was much cultivated, and well understood. But the possession of this single treatise of Aristotle, even in its imperfect state, gave the Latins such advantages in the important points of arrangement and general correctness, as would keep them clear of those errors in which the bolder and untaught genius of the Greeks was almost necessarily bewildered. It would seem then antecedently probable, from the circumstances of their times, that either party would have merits and defects peculiar to themselves. In the Greeks we should expect all those excellencies and blemishes which great yet unaided talents among such a people could produce. On the other hand, the Latins would be more likely to distinguish their writings by acquired than by natural ability; and if not remarkable for such masterly strokes of genius, they would yet be superior in all those points which are affected by an improved state of education, manners, and taste. It remains for us to enquire whether these remarks, drawn from the nature of the case, are confirmed by direct proof from their writings; and in the course of this examination to strike out such other differences between the parties, as will occur by the way. To descend into a critical investigation of the various kinds of Poetry in cach language, or to construct such an argument as would depend much upon the citation of particular passages, would be beyond the present design. It will perhaps be sufficient therefore if, following that broad division made by Aristotle of the Poets into the grave and the light, we bring together those more general differences, which as they may be shown without a lengthened induction, are also more truly and strictly characteristic. In Epic Poetry and in all its highest excellencies, invention on the part of the Greeks is most conspicuous and triumphant. There have indeed been certain traditions, by which even Homer himself has been accused of plagiarism; but as they seem to have been mere assertions, of unknown origin, against probability, and in opposition to the best ancient authorities; so few but the lowest critics have believed or attended to them. Virgil, on the contrary, has borrowed so unsparingly from the Grecian remains which we have, and there is reason to believe so much from other works which since his time have been lost, that we may fairly infer his object to have been not so much to invent, as to select and compose skilfully, and to express happily to bestow, in short, as much perfection as possible, by whatever means, upon the Eneid itself, rather than to pro duce a specimen of what his own unassisted powers of invention could effect. In the Fable there is such a combination from the Iliad and the Odyssey, so much from the Troades of Euripides, and probably so much more from a poem often mentioned by the ancients, the Lesser Iliad, that but little credit of invention can be due to Virgil for the matter of his poem. But in the arrangement of its parts, and in a just yet unshackled attention to the best rules of the critics, he is perhaps unequalled. The action is perfect; the probable and miraculous are most judiciously blended; and his episodes and digressions have a beautiful coherence with his main subject. It is not contended however that this order and propriety is the virtue of all the Latin Poets, or of any to a great degree but Virgil: the sententious digressions of Lucan in particular are often most unnatural and extravagant. In the delineation of character, probably no one ever approached the excellence of Homer: his variety is almost endless, a variety too not produced from the same traits under different combinations; but every deity and every hero is of a cast peculiar to himself throughout. Unquestionably from this cause his characters are generally very imperfect; often indeed made up of only one or two virtues, but these strongly marked and prominent. This is in unison with the morality of the age, and produces a portrait at least decided and definite, and if not such as with our clearer views we can approve, yet such as we cannot but admire. Virgil has drawn Æneas with infinitely more virtues and fewer vices than Homer has represented either in Hector or Achilles: he is affectionate, just, and devout; they often negligent of the most sacred duties, yet upon the whole they appear to us perhaps characters possessed of finer qualities, and certainly hold our attention with a deeper interest. And the reason is plain: the Eneas of Virgil combines almost every excellent quality which Homer has been content to ascribe to his heroes separately; and by this elaborate production he has departed from nature, and destroyed character altogether. He has introduced more of the philosopher than will well consist with the ancient warrior; and he has represented to the Romans their venerable founder scarce less refined in sentiment, and correct in conduct, than courtly flattery attributed to the ruling emperor. It is but seldom that Virgil introduces a character of his own, and whenever he has done so, he appears to have failed. Of the companions of Æneas, we only know in the general that they were brave and worthy men. Camilla is an original, which however some ancient and a few modern critics may have admired, was as unnatural in the age of Troy as it is now, and is therefore a violation of good taste. In this province of Poetry the talent of Lucan was so far above the lot of his countrymen, that perhaps nothing but an early death has prevented him from rivalling the happiest efforts of the Greeks. In his characters there is much of that distinctness so admirable in Homer; and at the same time he has ennobled them by a loftiness of thought, which without impairing the bold features of the hero elevates him into the most dignified example of moral greatness. It is only to be regretted, that he has adopted the less poetical and less interesting method of exhibiting characters by formal description, instead of permitting his personages, like those of Homer and Virgil, to speak for themselves. The sentiments of Homer's heroes partake of the same faults which we have observed in the characters themselves. The opinions of the age forbad that he should draw men more perfect, and therefore their thoughts naturally partake of the same imperfection. But in the great excellence of sublimity, no poet has ever approached him, except perhaps our own countryman Milton. Virgil indeed is often grand, but his merit consists chiefly in the propriety of his sentiments; and he had certainly a juster sense of the uniform dignity of the Epic poem, than almost any Bard either of ancient or modern times. There is nothing in which the minor Epic Poets among the Latins have failed so much as in the sentiments which they ascribe to their heroes, and their manner of expressing them. Ovid is often puerile; Lucan is continually laboring after turns of epigram; and both Claudian and Statius mistake bombast for sublimity, and declamation for poetry. If it may seem from what has been said, that too much has been deducted from the fame of the great Bard of Latium; it should be remembered, that the censure extends not beyond his talent for invention, and his skill in the delineation of character. The Eneid of Virgil is indeed an assemblage of beauties, in which, as in a well-cultivated garden, though we find not the rich but wild luxuriance of a natural growth, we are delighted with a choice selection of the flowers of various regions, unincumbered with weeds, and grouped with the most tasteful elegance. But however the Latins have failed in some of the primary virtues of Poetry; in the work of description they have even excelled their Grecian masters. In this subordinate yet beau |