THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
| The Champion.] | [December 25, 1814. |
The story of a poem is seldom worth a long description. It may be sufficient to say in the present case, that the danger to which the church was exposed, and from which it was afterwards delivered, arose from the second marriage of Charlemagne with Armelie, the daughter of Didier, the King of the Lombards, who was exerting himself to depose Pope Adrian. Charlemagne had divorced his first wife, Adelinde, but he is warned in a vision to take her again to his bosom. He does so, and Didier and his daughter consequently become the enemies of this Christian Emperor, who takes arms to defend the Holy See. After the usual casualties and fluctuations of fortune, the son of Pepin finally triumphs.
On a more careful examination, we see no reason to alter our first opinion of this poem. It has given us no strong impulse, nor left any permanent trace on our minds. It opens no new and rich vein of poetry, though certainly great talents are shewn in the use which is made of existing materials. Perhaps it may be said that this is all that can be done in a modern poem: if so, that all is hardly worth the doing. There is no one who has borrowed his materials more than Milton, or who has made them more completely his own: there is hardly a line which does not breathe the same lofty spirit, hardly a thought or image which he has not clothed with the majesty of his genius. It is the same in reading other great poets. The informing mind is every where present to us. Who is there that does not know and feel sensibly the majestic copiousness of Homer, the polished elegance of Virgil, enamoured of its own workmanship,—the severe grandeur of Dante, the tender pathos of Tasso, the endless voluptuousness of Spenser, and the unnumbered graces of Ariosto? Even the mysterious solemnity of Ossian, and the wild romantic interest of Walter Scott, are something gained to the imagination. But in the present instance, we do not feel the same participation with the author’s mind, nor accession of strength to our own. So little is it in the power even of the most accomplished art to counterfeit nature. The true Florimel did not differ more from the Florimel which was made for the witches’ son, than true genius from the most successful and elaborate imitation of it.
We shall close these remarks with extracting two passages which in the opinion of our readers will perhaps be thought to amount to a complete refutation of our objections. The first is the description of the funeral rites of Orlando, in the thirteenth canto.
‘Gaiffre a suivi son guide au fond du précipice,
Un clocher solitaire a frappé ses regards:
Dans les jours du repos, les fidèles épars
Accourent au signal du divin sacrifice.
Ici du haut des monts descendent les pasteurs.
La vierge des douleurs
De ces mortels obscurs y reçoit la prière:
Sur un autel de bois on a sculpté ses traits;
Les nombreux ex-voto de la divine mère
Dans ces lieux écartés attestant les bienfaits.
Un son plaintif et sourd vient de frapper les airs;
C’est l’airain qui gémit pour les pompes funèbres.
Dans le temple le jour a fait place aux ténèbres;
Des signes de la mort les parois sont couverts.
Un saint pontife offrait la victime ineffable;
Et sa voix secourable
Invoquait pour nos preux le céleste repos.
Un simple sarcophage au milieu de l’enceinte
Retrace à tous les yeux la tombe du héros,
Et répand dans les cœurs une tristesse sainte.
Le prêtre des hameaux, suivant l’antique usage,
Dans l’Eglise chrétienne en tout temps révéré,
Trois fois avec l’eau sainte et l’encensoir sacré
Fait solennellement le tour du sarcophage.
“Dans le sein de ton Dieu sois heureux à jamais:
Roland, repose en paix.”
Du pontife telle est la fervente prière.
Ces mots ont terminé le sacrifice saint;
Et la foule se rend dans le champ funéraire
Ou gît, sous une croix, le corps du paladin.’
In the nineteenth canto, Lawrence and her children, after their escape from Bourdeaux, arrive at the castle of Melaric, an old christian knight, when the following example of perfect description occurs:—
‘La nuit envellopait les champs & les remparts;
Sur les murs menaçants de la salle gothique
Une teinte plus sombre & plus mélancholique
Couvrait les boucliers, les glaives, & les dards;
Le vent du soir soufflait des gorges du Pyrène;
Et sa fougueuse halcine
Des armures des preux entrechoquait l’airain.
Les lances, les cimiers rendent des sons funèbres:
Leur murmure plaintif ressemble au cri lointain
D’un guerrier qui succombe au milieu des ténèbres.’
The author in his notes gives us to understand that he is about another epic poem, the hero of which is Isolier, a native of Corsica, and which is to bear the same relation to Charlemagne, that the Odyssey does to the Iliad.