See, a long race thy fpacious courts adorn; See future fons, and daughters yet unborn, t See barb'rous nations at thy gates attend, And feeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow. W No more the rifing w Sun fhall gild the morn, One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze REMARKS. 00 95 100 VER. 87. See the very animated prophecy of Joad, in the seventh scene of Racine's Athaliah, perhaps the most fublime piece of poetry in the French language, and a chief ornament of that which is one of the best of their tragedies. In fpeaking of these paraphrafes from the facred fcriptures, I cannot forbear mentioning Dr. Young's nervous and noble paraphrafe of the book of Job, and Mr. Pitt's of the third and twenty-fifth chapters of the fame book, and alfo of the fifteenth chapter of Exodus. VER. 100. Cynthia is an improper because a claffical word. IMITATIONS. "Magnus ab integro faeclorum nafcitur ordo! -toto furget gens aurea mundo! -incipient magni procedere menfes ! Afpice, venturo laetentur ut omnia faeclo!" &c. The reader needs only to turn to the paffages of Ifaiah, here O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine X 106 The feas fhall wafte, the fkies in smoke decay, THIS is certainly the most animated and fublime of all our Author's compofitions, and it is manifeftly owing to the great original which he copied. Ifaiah abounds in ftriking and magnificent imagery. See Mr. Mason's paraphrafe of the 14th chapter of this exalted prophet. Dr. Johnson, in his youth, gave a tranflation of this piece, which has been praifed and magnified beyond its merits. It may juftly be faid, (with all due refpect to the great talents of this writer), that in this translation of the Meffiah are many hard and unclaffical expreffions, a great want of harmony, and many unequal and Un-virgilian lines. I was once prefent at a difpute, on this fubject, betwixt a perfon of great political talents, and a fcholar who had fpent his life among the Greek and Roman claffics. Both were intimate friends of Johnfon. The former, after many objections had been made to this tranflation by the latter, quoted a line which he thought equal to any he ever had read. The juncique tremit variabilis umbra. The Scholar (Pedant if you will) faid, there is no fuch word as variabilis in any claffical writer. Surely, faid the other, in Virgil ; variabile femper foemina.You forget, faid the opponent, it is varium & mutabile. In two men of fuperior talents it was certainly no disgrace to the one not to have written pure Virgilian verses, nor to the other to have mifquoted a line of the Æneid. They only who are fuch idolaters of the Rambler, as to think he could do every thing equally well, can alone be mortified at hearing that the following lines in his Meffiah are reprehenfible; Cœlum mihi carminis alta materies dignos accende furores- Mittit aromaticas vallis faronica nubes Ille cutim fpiffam vifus habetare vetabit- juncique tremit variabilis umbra- Artificis frondent dextræ feffa colubri Membra viatoris recreabunt frigore linguæ. Boileau despised the writers of modern Latin poetry. Jortin faid he was no extraordinary claffical scholar, and that he translated Longinus from the Latin. Of all the celebrated French writers Racine appears to be the best, if not the only Greek scholar, except Fenelon. The reft, Corneille, Moliere, La Motte, Fontenelle, Crebillon, Voltaire, knew little of that language. I find and feel it impoffible to conclude these remarks on Pope's Melliah, without mentioning another poem taken alfo from Ifaiah, the noble and magnificent ode on the Destruction of Babylon, which Dr. Lowth hath given us in the thirteenth of his Prelections on the Poetry of the Hebrews; and which, the fcene, the actors, the fentiments, and diction, all contribute to place in the first rank of the fublime; thefe Prelections, abounding in remarks entirely new, delivered in the purest and moft expreffive language, have been received and read with almoft univerfal approbation, both at home and abroad, as being the richeft augmentation literature has in our times received, and as tending to illuftrate and recommend the Holy Scriptures in an uncommon degree. It has been confequently a matter of furprize to hear an eminent prelate pronouncing lately, with a dogmatical air, that these Prelections, “are in a vein of criticism not above the common." Notwithstanding which decifion, it may fafely be affirmed, that they will long furvive, after the commentaries on Horace's Art of Poetry, and on the Effay on Man, are loft and forgotten. |