His elegy on Mary, Queen of Scots, is also a vision, but it is better managed, at once mournful and sweet. He has thrown a pall of gorgeous embroidery over the bloody hearse of Mary.
Wolfwold and Ella, of which the story was suggested by a picture of Mortimer's, is itself a picture, in which the fine colouring and spirited attitudes reconcile us to its horrors.
His tragedy is a tissue of love and intrigue, with sudden starts of passion, and unprepared and improbable turns of resolution and temper. Towards the conclusion, one of the female characters puts an end to herself, for little apparent reason, except that it is the fifth act, and some blood must therefore be shed; Garrick's refusal, in all likelihood, spared him the worse mortification of seeing it rejected on the stage. Yet there is here and there in it a masterly touch like the following:
Either my mind has lost its energy,
Or the unbodied spirits of my fathers,
Beneath the night's dark wings, pass to and fro,
In doleful agitation hovering round me.
Methought my father, with a mournful look,
Beheld me. Sudden from unconscious pause
I wak'd, and but his marble bust was here.
Almada Hill has some just sentiments, and some pleasing imagery; but both are involved in the mazes of an unskilful or ambitious phraseology, from which it is a work of trouble to extricate them. It was about this time, that the laboured style in poetry had reached its height. Not "to loiter into prose," of which Lyttelton bade him beware, was the grand aim; and in their eagerness to leave prose as far behind them as possible, the poets were in danger of outstripping the understanding and feelings of their readers. It was this want of ease and perspicuity in his longer pieces, which prevented Mickle from being as much a favourite with the public, as many who were far his inferiors in the other qualities of a poet. When a writer is obscure, only because his reasoning is too abstruse, his fancy too lively, or his allusions too learned for the vulgar, it is more just that we should complain of ourselves for not being able to rise to his level, than of him for not descending to our's. But let the difficulty arise from mere imperfections of language, and the consciousness of having solved an involuntary enigma is scarcely sufficient to reward our pains.
The translation of the Lusiad is that by which he is best known. In this, as in his original poems, the expression is sometimes very faulty; but he is never flat or insipid. In the numbers, there is much sweetness and freedom: and though they have somewhat of the masculine melody of Dryden, yet they have something also that is peculiarly his own. He has in a few instances enriched the language of poetry by combinations unborrowed from any of his predecessors. It is doubtful whether as much can be said for Pope's translation of Homer. Almost all who have written much in the couplet measure, since Waller clipped it into uniformity, have been at times reduced to the necessity of eking out their lines in some way or other so as to make the sense reach its prescribed bound. Most have done it by means of epithets, which were always found to be "friends in need." Mickle either breaks the lines with a freedom and spirit which were then unusual, or repeats something of what has gone before, a contrivance that ought to be employed sparingly, and used chiefly when it is desirable to produce the effect of sweetness.
The preference which he sometimes claims in the notes for his author, above the other epic poets of ancient and modern times, is less likely to conciliate the good opinion than to excite the disgust of his readers. There is no artifice that a translator can resort to with less chance of success, than this blowing of the showman's trumpet as he goes on exhibiting the wonders of his original. There are some puerile hyperboles, for which I know not whether he or Camoens is responsible; such as—
The mountain echoes catch the big swoln sighs.
The yellow sands with tears are silver'd o'er.
Johnson told him that he had once intended to translate the Lusiad. The version would have had fewer faults, but it may be questioned whether the general result would have been as much animation and harmony as have been produced by Mickle.
In addition to the poems, which were confessedly his, there are no less than seventeen in Mr. Evans's collection of Ballads, of which a writer in the Quarterly Review[1] some years ago expressed his suspicion that they were from the pen of Mickle. It has been found on inquiry, that the suggestion of this judicious critic is fully confirmed. One of these has lately been brought into notice from its having formed the groundwork of one of those deservedly popular stories, which have lately come to us from the north of the Tweed. It is to be wished that Mickle's right in all of them were formally recognized, and that they should be no longer withheld from their place amongst his other poetical writings, to which they would form so valuable an accession.