Of the Palace of Fortune, an Indian tale, the conclusion is unexpected and affecting.
The Persian song from Hafez, is one of those pieces that, by a nameless charm, fasten themselves on the memory.
In the Caissa, or poem on Chess, he is not minute enough to gratify a lover of the game, and too particular to please one who reads it for the poetry. The former will prefer the Scacchia Ludus of Vida, of which it is a professed imitation; and the latter will be satisfied with the few spirited lines which the Abbe de Lille has introduced into his L'Homme des Champs, on this subject. Vida's poem is a surprising instance of difficulty overcome, in the manner with which he has moulded the phraseology of the classics to a purpose apparently alien from it; and he has made his mythology agreeable, trivial as it is, by the skill with which it is managed. But I find that both the Caissa, and the Arcadia, which is taken from a paper in the Guardian, were done, as the author says, at the age of 16 or 17 years, and were saved from the fire in preference to a great many others, because they seemed more correctly versified than the rest. It is, therefore, hardly fair to judge them very strictly.
His Latin commentary on Asiatic poetry is more valuable for the extracts from the Persian and Arabic poets, which he has brought together in it, than to be commended for anything else that it contains, or for the style in which it is written. Certain marks of hurry in the composition, which his old schoolfellow, Doctor Parr, had intimated to him with the ingenuousness of a friend and a scholar, are still apparent. He takes up implicitly with that incomplete and partial, though very ingenious system, which Burke had lately put forth in his essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. He has supported that writer's definition of Beauty by a quotation from Hermogenes. A better confirmation of his theory might have been adduced from the Philebus of Plato, in which Socrates makes the same distinction as our eloquent countryman has taken so much pains to establish between that sensation which accompanies the removal of pain or danger, and which he calls delight—and positive pleasure.[2] As the work, however, of a young man, the commentary was such as justly to raise high expectations of the writer.
His style in English prose, where he had most improved it, that is, in his discourses delivered in India on Asiatic History and Literature, is opulent without being superfluous; dignified, yet not pompous or inflated. He appears intent only on conveying to others the result of his own inquiries and reflections on the most important topics, in as perspicuous a manner as possible; and the embellishments of diction come to him unbidden and unsought. His prolixity does not weary, nor his learning embarrass, the reader. If he had been more elaborate, he might have induced a suspicion of artifice; if he had been less so, the weightiness of his matter would seem to have been scarcely enough considered. But he has higher claims to the gratitude of his country, and of mankind, than either prose or poetry can give. His steady zeal in the cause of liberty, and justice, and truth, is above all praise; and will leave his name among the few
—quos aequus amavit
Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus,
Dis geniti.
FOOTNOTES
[1] [Greek: Leimhon], a meadow.
[2] [Greek: Alaethehis dhan tinas, o Sokrates, upolambanon, orthos tis
dianooit an; SO. Tas peri te ta kala legomena chromata kai peri ta
schaemata, kai ton osmon tas pleistas, kai tas ton phthongon, kai
osa tas endeias anaisthaetous echonta kai alupous, tas plaeroseis
aisthaetas kai aedeias katharas lupon paradidosi.] "What pleasures
then, Socrates, may one justly conclude to be true ones?—Soc.
Those which regard both such colours as are accounted beautiful; and
figures; and many smells and sounds; and whatsoever things, when
they are absent, we neither feel the want of, nor are uneasy for;
but when present, we feel and enjoy without any mixture of
uneasiness." He then goes on to exemplify these true pleasures in
forms, colours, &c. Compare the De Rep. p. 534.
* * * * *
THOMAS CHATTERTON.
If it were allowable for one who professes to write the lives of English poets to pass the name of Chatterton in silence, I should think the literature of our country more honoured by the concealment of his fate than by the record of his genius. Yet from his brief story, the young will learn, that genius is likely to lead them into misery, if it be not accompanied by something that is better than genius; and men, whom birth and station have rendered eminent, may discover that they owe some duty to those whom nature has made more than their equals; and who—