'In the same poem is a description of the golden age, in which the author seems to have exerted all his powers, in selecting such images as are supposed to have been peculiar to that happy state of life.'
Mr. R., with great propriety, places the essence of poetic diction,—not of poesy itself, for that consists in invention,—in representing its object in motion, to impress us with it's variety of action and attitudes; in short, in following time, avoiding a minute anatomy of motionless surfaces, to which words, it's vehicle, are totally inadequate. Surface can only be distinctly discriminated by line and colour. Hence it is evident that poetry cannot in this respect be either put in comparison with, or be elevated above painting; the province of their expression, and effect, must be for ever separate, though they perfectly coincide in their aim, which is to charm and convince the senses. Thus, when poetry attempts to describe an object, it must confine itself to one, or a very few words, in whatever merely relates to the shape or surface of that object, and it's more profuse description is only then in it's place, when that object begins to move. Such is the rule of Nature and of Homer, from which no ancient or modern poet has deviated with impunity; and Ariosto, who has described the shape, figure, and colour of Alcina, in five stanzas, has laboured as much in vain to acquaint us with the ingredients of his witch-beauty, as Constantinus Manasses to give us a clear idea of Helen by his agglomeration of epithets, or as Haller of the Genziana, by a description of nineteen lines. The images which Mr. R. adduces from Lorenzo confirm this; they attain their effect merely by hastening from the body of the object to it's motion. Not the most expressive words of the most expressive language ever given to man, arranged by Homer or Milton, or a power still superior to their's, could produce a sensation equal to that which is instantaneously received by one glance on the face of the Venus de' Medici, or in that of the Apollo in Belvedere; and if the spark, which Phidias caught from the Zeus of Homer, were shot by his waving locks and the nod of his brow, will it be denied that Ctesilas in his expiring warrior, from whose expression might be collected how much remained of life, or Aristides in the wounded mother, who, in the pangs of death, struggled to remove her child from her palsied nipple, 'surrounded, pierced, and disclosed the most hidden qualities of their objects?'
From what Mr. R. with great acuteness remarks on poetic comparison, we have extracted the following sonnet of Lorenzo, with the translation, 'not only,' as he adds, 'as an instance of the illustration of one sensible object by another, but of the comparison of an abstract sentiment with a beautiful natural image.' P. 260.
SONETTO.
"Oimè, che belle lagrime fur quelle
Che 'l nembo di disio stillando mosse!
Quando il giusto dolor che'l cor percosse,
Salì poi su nell' amorose stelle!
Rigavon per la delicata pelle
Le bianche guancie dolcemente rosse,
Come chiar rio faria, che'n prato fosse,
Fier bianchi, e rossi, le lagrime belle;
Lieto amor stava in l' amorosa pioggia,
Com' uccel dopo il sol, bramate tanto,
Lieto riceve rugiadose stille.
Poi piangendo in quelli occhi ov'egli alloggia,
Facea del bello e doloroso pianto,
Visibilmente uscir dolce faville."
"Ah! pearly drops, that pouring from those eyes,
Spoke the dissolving cloud of soft desire!
What time cold sorrow chill'd the genial fire,
'Struck the fair urns, and bade the waters rise.'
Soft down those cheeks, where native crimson vies
With ivory whiteness, see the crystals throng;
As some clear river winds its stream along,
Bathing the flowers of pale and purple dyes,
Whilst Love rejoicing in the amorous shower,
Stands like some bird, that, after sultry heats,
Enjoys the drops, and shakes his glittering wings:
Then grasps his bolt, and, conscious of his power,
Midst those bright orbs assumes his wonted seat,
And thro' the lucid shower his living lightning flings."
The wing, the harp, the hatchet, the altar of Simmias, were the dregs of a degraded nation's worn-out taste; but it is matter of surprise, that a race celebrated for susceptibility of sentiment should have submitted to lisp their first accents, and continued to breathe their full raptures of love, in the trammels of a sonnet. If, as may reasonably be supposed, the first twister of a sonnet were a being of a versatile head and frozen heart, the beauties thronged into this little labyrinth, it's glowing words, and thoughts that burn, whether we consider the original, or it's more than equal translation, equally challenge our admiration and sympathy.
We must yet be allowed to make a few observations on what our author, perhaps with greater ingenuity than impartiality, pronounces on the comparative excellence of the ancients and moderns in the use of the prosopopœia.
P.266.—'If the moderns excel the ancients in any department of poetry, it is in that now under consideration. It must not indeed be supposed, that the ancients were insensible of the effects produced by this powerful charm, which, more peculiarly than any other, may be said
To give to airy nothing,
A local habitation and a name.