"Of Death. to the dark and hideous Grave: "There is no Spectacle more profit- Where, in stead of shaking of the able, or more terrible, than the sight golden Sceptre, it now lies imprison'd of a dying man, when he lies expiring but in five foot of Lead: and is behis Soule on his death-bed: to see how come a nest of wormes, a lumpe of filth, the ancient society of the body and the a bore of pallid putrefaction. There is soule is divelled; and yet to see, how even the difference of two severall they struggle at the parting: being in Worlds, betwixt a King enamel'd with some doubt what shall become of them his Robes and Jewels, sitting in his after. The spirits shrink inward, and Chaire of adored State, and his condiretire to the anguisht heart: as if, tion in his bed of Earth, which hath like Sons prest from an indulgent Fa- made him but a Case of Crawlers: and ther, they would come for a sad Vale, yet all this change, without the losse from that which was their fes main- of any visible substantiall: Since all tainer: while that in the meane time the limbes remaine as they were, withpants with affrighting pangs, and the out the least signe, either of dislocahands and feet, being the most remote tion, or diminution. From hence tis, from it, are by degrees encoldened to I thinke, Scaliger defines Death to bee a fashionable clay: as if Death crept the Cessation of the Soules functions: in at the nayles, and by an insensible as if it was rather a restraint, than a surprize, suffocated the inviron'd heart, missive ill. And if any thing at all To see how the mind would faine utter bee wanting, 'tis onely colour, motion, it selfe, when the Organes of the voyce heate, and empty ayre. Though inare so debilitated, that it cannot. To deed, if wee consider this dissolution, see how the eye settles to a fixed dim- man by death is absolutely divided and nesse, which a little before, was swift disman'd. That grosse object which as the shootes of Lightning, nimbler is left to the spectators eyes; is now than the thought, and bright as the onely a composure but of the two baser polisht Diamond: and in which, this Elements, water, and Earth that now Miracle was more eminent than in any it is these two only, that seeme to make of the other parts, That it, being a ma- body, while the two purer, Fire and teriall earthly body, should yet be con- Aure, are wing'd away, as being more veyed with quicker motion, than the fit for the compact of an element all and revolutions of an indefinite soule. So ascentive Soule, When thou shalt see suddenly bringing the object to con- also these things happen to one whose ceits, that one would thinke, the ap- conversation had indeared him to thee; prehension of the heart were seated in when thou shalt see the body put on the eye it selfe. To see all his friends, Deaths sad and ashy countenance, in like Conduits, dropping teares about the dead age of night; when silent him; while hee neither knowes his darknesse does incompasse the dimme wants, nor they his cure. Nay, even light of thy glimmering Taper, and thou the Physician, whose whole life is no- hearest a solemne Bell toled, to tell the thing but a study and practice to con- world of it; which now, as it were, tinue the lives of others: and who is with this sound, is struck into a dumb the Anatomist of generall Nature, is attention: Tell me if thou canst then now as one that gazes at a Comet, find a thought of thine, devoting thee which he can reach with nothing, but to pleasure, and the fugitive foyes of his eye alone. To see the Countenance, life? O what a bubble, what a pufe, (through which perhaps there shin'd what but a winke of life is man ! ́And a lovely majesty, even to the captivat- with what a generall swallow, Death ing of admiring soules) now altered to still gapes upon the generall world! a frightfull palenesse, and the terrors When Hadrian askt Secundus, What of a gastly looke. To thinke, how that Death was: Hee answered in these which commanded a Family, nay per- severall truths: It is a sleepe eternall; haps a Kingdome, and kept all in awe, the Bodies dissolution; the rich mans with the mooving of a spongy tongue, feare; the poore man's wish; an event is now become a thing so full of hor. inevitable; an uncertaine Iourney; a rour, that children feare to see it: and Thiefe that steales away man; Sleepes must now therefore bee transmitted father; Lifes flight; the departure of from all these inchanting blandishments, the living; and the resolution of all. amnes. Ruunt de montibus Speluncam Dido dux et Trojanus eandem Deveniunt. seq. Who may not from such sights and Tecta metu petiere. thoughts as these, learne, if hee will, both humility and loftiness? the one, to vilifie the Body, which must once perish in a stenchfull nastinesse; the This is narrative, and this is an inother to advance the Soule, which stance precisely parallel with the paslives here but for a higher, and more sage from Milton. Authority indeed heavenly ascension? As I would not was not wanting to establish so simple care for too much indulgiating of the flesh, which I must one day yeeld to the Wormes: So I would ever bee studious for such actions, as may appeare the issues of a noble and diviner Soule." a truth: the beauty both of the preceding lines, and those from Paradise Lost, is sufficiently evident. But there are who would cavil at excellencies in a native poet, that are silent (mussant tacito timore) when they stumble upon the same in a MILTON vindicated by the authority classic. To such I write, and remain, A SIR, of VIRGIL. Sir, your very obedient servant, X. Y. On the ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION of the LATIN LANGUAGE. SIR, MUCH dispute has taken place CORRESPONDENT in your last number has vindicated Milton from the criticism of Pope, upon the abstract principles of taste, and I am fully inclined to subscribe to their justness. To some, however, example is beyond precept: and to most, respecting the propriety of our classical authority carries with it a public schools adopting the practice weight which only strong and inde- of the continent, relative to the claspendent minds have power to resist. sical pronunciation of the learned Your readers, therefore, and your cor- languages; but whatever opinion may respondent, will not, I presume, be be entertained on this point, I condispleased to find Milton justifiable ceive that the English delivery should upon the authority of so correct and be at least consistent with the prosochaste a classic as Virgil. daic laws in which all scholars agree; In the fourth Book of the Æneid, and much of the time expended in when Juno concerts with Venus the acquiring these rules might be spared manner in which Æneas shall be led by the following practical expedient: -to consummate the marriage with The long sound of the vowels i, o, Dido, the fatal grove into which a, is represented in that of idol, pose, shower was to drive them, she says, and tune; yet in such words as fixit, His ego nigrantem commixta grandine nimbum Dum trepidant alæ, saltusque indagine ciu they are universally pronounced with non, and nupta, with many others, the short sound, as in griffin, potter, and tumble. In the first example, the vowel is evidently long, and is so uttered in the etymon figo; in the second, because syllables in final n are produced by the acknowledged rules of prosody; and in the third, as being derived from nebo. The French language is exempt. from this disadvantage; e. g:-the long sound of their a is found in dark, and the short one in their vocable fat: cantabo, where the a is long, is spoken in the first mode; and cano, where it is short, in the second. On this subject I am fortified by the authority of Boileau Despréaux, where, speaking of Perrault, he says, 20 breves dans les Syllabes Latins, comme si "Il trouvera bon que je lui apprenne certainty, and destined to be alterqu'il n'est pas vrai l'a de cano daus Arma nately elevated and depressed, as hope virumque cano se doive prononcer comme and disappointment were presented l'a de cantabo; et que c'est une erreur to him by the hands of those who afqu'il a succée dans le college, où l'on a fected to be his patrons? The concette mauvaise méthode de prononcer les clusion of this preface is the timid apc'étaient des longues."-Reflex. Critiques, peal of a feeling and delicate mind to the factitious distributors of monthly No. 2, pag. 246, edit. Geneve, tome 3. and quarterly reputations. "Such treat the lenity of the public. The are the poems, towards which I encritic will doubtless find in them much to condemn: he may likewise In the signature of STELL in your possibly discover something to comlast number, to the Justification of mend. Let him scan my faults with Milton, commute the first L for an These principles might be carried -much farther with advantage, but I retreat from the imputation of singularity.. additional E. A critical and illustrative Estimation of H. K. WHITE's Genius. By Mr. MUDFORD. T an indulgent eye; and in the work of that correction which I invite, let him remember he is holding the iron mace of criticism over the flimsy superstructure of a youth of seventeen; and remembering that, may he forbear from crushing by too much ri gour the painted butterfly, whose transient colours may otherwise be capable of affording a moment's innocent amusement." Continued from p. 210.] SHALL now turn my attention to that collection of poems which Henry published in his own life-time. They are not numerous, and indeed, generally speaking, they are not ex- In reading the poems published by cellent: I mean when compared with Henry, I think I have perceived more other pieces which he produced be- marks of youth and inexperience than fore and about the same period as in the others. Sometimes, indeed, these. The trite observation of an his genius takes a lofty flight; and author's incompetency to be a correct when it does rise, it ascends with all estimator of his own merits, may pro- the majesty of inspiration. These bably apply here; for, if we suppose flights, however, are not so frequent; Henry to have selected the poems and when he stoops, it is not with which he published from those which the same ease, propriety, and gracewere destined to be posthumous, I fulness. All the meretricious ornamay then say, with little fear of con- ments of style, which are likely to tradiction, that he selected with the catch the mind of a young writer, partiality of an author. I cannot dis- may here be traced: elisions, forced cover in them so much of inspiration, inversions, expletives, superfluous epiof a certain warmth of language, and thets, and obscure diction. In the ingrandeur, and felicity of idea, as in troductory ode to his "Lyre," we those which have already passed un- have these lines: der my notice. The preface to this small wreathe of wild flowers is written with a modest simplicity, over which subsequent events have thrown an additional interest. When he states his motives for publication to be "the facilitation through its means of those studies which, from his earliest years, have been the principal objects of his ambition; and the increase of the capacity to pursue those inclinations which may one day place him in an honourCable station in the scale of society," who does not regret that he was so long tossed about, the victim of un -"thy music wild Has serv'd to charm the weary hour, "and thou, and I, must shroud Where dark oblivion "thrones." In "Clifton Grove," the following lines are exceptionable, on account of some one or other of the above-mentioned errors: «While happiness evades the busy crowd In rural coverts loves the maid to shroud.” There is nothing which a young poet so readily believes as that inversion must be poetry. The cacophony in the first of the this minute criticism: but to such I following lines is very obvious: "And thou, too Inspiration, whose wild flame Shoots with electric swiftness thro' my frame." "The woods that wave, the grey owl's silken flight, would answer, that the aggregate excellence of poetry is built upon the individual excellence of expression: that thoughts, in themselves grand or sublime, moral or pathetic, derive all their power over the mind from the language in which they are clothed; and that there must be conin verbal criticism, as it establishes sequently an appropriate excellence what is correct by displaying what is erroneous. Indiscriminate praise is severest censure: and, where no It is impossible to affix a meaning personal feelings intervene to occasion to the words in the last line. In the it, can proceed only from an imbecifollowing there are both tautology lity of mind. Were I to criticise the and incongruity: The mellow music of the listening night," "How lovely, from this hill's superior height Spreads the wide view, &c." "Now ceas'd the long, the monitory toll, Returning silence stagnates in the soul.” "Or where the village ale-house crowns the vale, The creaking sign-post whistles to the gale." "for her each swain Confess'd in private his peculiar pain." The last line has all the inflated inanity of modern poetry. Henry seems also to have been unaccountably attached to the verb to In Clifton Grove," he career. says, "a'er the woodland drear, Howling portentous, did the winds career Again, in the lines supposed to be spoken by a lover at the grave of his mistress, "O! then, as lone reclining I listen'd sadly to the dismal storm, works of Henry Kirke White as the True case in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. Having thus pointed out some of found in these poems, I shall now those juvenile errors which are to be proceed to a further consideration of them. There was nothing which struck me more forcibly when I first read Thou, on the lambent lightnings wild ca- these poems, and even now, than their reering, Didst strike my moody eye.” felicity of versification. This excellence Henry may contest with Pope; And in his Sonnet to the Æolian only that Pope joined another merit, Harp, he exclaims, "So ravishingly soft upon the tide Of the enfuriate gust it did career To the mind of Henry, Milton perhaps was the sanctifier of this expression: in Paradise Lost, he has the "with eyes, the wheels Of beryl, and careering fires between." B. VI. 1. 756. lines, being as it were the founder of that harmony which has now become almost indispensable in English poetry. It was easier for Henry, with perfect models before his eyes to catch their merits, than for Pope to depart from less perfect ones, and become himself a model. Yet, when this deduction is made, there still remains ample field for commendation in the texture of Henry's versification: and, indeed, I need not here repeat what I have (whether from design or chance, I already said, when freely animadvert- know not) it sometimes unites the ing upon the faults of Henry. There even flow of Pope with the more irare, I know, who would consider as regular rythym of Dryden. trifling, if not unnecessarily severe, When Henry wrote his poem of Clifton Grove, he seems to have been spairing lover, who drowns himself in fresh from the study of English clas- the Trent, Henry has the following sies, for it abounds with imitations of beautiful lines: their most popular passages. I will Sad, on the solitude of night, the sound, notice a few of them: "And beds of violets blooming mil the trees, Load with waste fragrance the nocturnal breeze." for me; As in the stream he plung'd was heard around: Then all was still-the wave was rough no The river swept as sweetly as before; The frequent corse, while on each other fix'd, In sad presage, the blank assistants seem'd Silent, to ask whom Fate would next demand." I will freely confess, however, that For me, you waving fields their burthen if Henry had this passage from Thom bear For me, yon labourer guides the shining share, &c." From Pope, though differently applied: For me kind nature wakes her genial power, Annual for me the grape, the rose renew For me health gushes from a thousand springs; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise, Can rear a garden in the desart waste. The idea probably from Milton: This, sheds a fairy lustre on the floods, From Pope, son in his thoughts, he has produced one much finer. I have already said, that Clifton Grove does not abound with many. examples of true inspiration. Sometimes he breaks forth into grandeur, as in the following couplet: A hundred passing years with inarch sublime, Have swept beneath the silent wing of time. But these instances are rare; and I shall dismiss this poem with extracting two passages from it as specimens, and which are perhaps its best. They are both examples of uncommon feli city of versification in a boy not yet sixteen: Say, why does man, while to his opening sight Each shrub presents a source of chaste de- And nature bids for him her treasures flow, Though fraught with ruin, infamy, and Deepens the murmur of the falling floods, Could he, who thus to vile enjoyments And breathes a browner horror on the woods. Flonsa. Describing, in Clifton Grove, a de clings, Know what calm joy from purer sources springs, |