[508] I am indebted for the knowledge of this to a manuscript note I found in the copy of Alabaster’s Roxana in the British Museum: Haud multum abest hæc tragedia a pura versione tragediæ Italicæ Ludovici Groti Cæci Hadriensis cui titulus Dalida. This induced me to read the tragedy of Groto, which I had not previously done.
The title of Roxana runs thus: Roxana tragedia a plagiarii unguibus vindicata aucta et agnita ab autore Gul. Alabastro., Lond., 1632.
May’s Supplement to Lucan. 74. But the first Latin poetry which England can vaunt is May’s Supplement to Lucan, in seven books, which carry down the history of the Pharsalia to the death of Cæsar. This is not only a very spirited poem, but, in many places at least, an excellent imitation. The versification, though it frequently reminds us of his model, is somewhat more negligent. May seems rarely to fall into Lucan’s tumid extravagances, or to emulate his philosophical grandeur; but the narration is almost as impetuous and rapid, the images as thronged; and sometimes we have rather a happy imitation of the ingenious sophisms Lucan is apt to employ. The death of Cato and that of Cæsar, are among the passages well worthy of praise. In some lines on Cleopatra’s intrigue with Cæsar, being married to her brother, he has seized, with felicitous effect, not only the broken cadences, but the love of moral paradox we find in Lucan.[509]
[509] —— Nec crimen inesse
Concubitu nimium tali, Cleopatra, putabunt
Qui Ptolemæorum thalamos, consuetaque jura
Incestæ novere domûs, fratremque sorori
Conjugio junctam, sacræ sub nomine tædæ
Majus adulterio delictum; turpius îsset,
Quis credat? justi ad thalamos Cleopatra mariti,
Utque minus lecto peccaret, adultera facta est.
Milton’s Latin poems. 75. Many of the Latin poems of Milton were written in early life, some even at the age of seventeen. His name, and the just curiosity of mankind to trace the development of a mighty genius, would naturally attract our regard. They are in themselves full of classical elegance, of thoughts natural and pleasing, of a diction culled with taste from the gardens of ancient poetry, of a versification remarkably well-cadenced and grateful to the ear. There is in them, without a marked originality, which Latin verse can rarely admit but at the price of some incorrectness or impropriety, a more individual display of the poet’s mind than we usually find. “In the elegies,” it is said by Warton, a very competent judge of Latin poetry, “Ovid was professedly Milton’s model for language and versification. They are not, however, a perpetual and uniform tissue of Ovidian phraseology. With Ovid in view he has an original manner and character of his own, which exhibit a remarkable perspicuity of contexture, a native facility and fluency. Nor does his observation of Roman models oppress or destroy our great poet’s inherent powers of invention and sentiment. I value these pieces as much for their fancy and genius as for their style and expression. That Ovid, among the Latin poets, was Milton’s favourite, appears not only from his elegiac but his hexametric poetry. The versification of our author’s hexameters has yet a different structure from that of the metamorphoses: Milton’s is more clear, intelligible, and flowing; less desultory, less familiar, and less embarrassed, with a frequent recurrence of periods. Ovid is at once rapid and abrupt.”[510] Why Warton should have at once supposed Ovid to be Milton’s favourite model in hexameters, and yet so totally different as he represents him to be, seems hard to say. The structure of our poet’s hexameters is much more Virgilian, nor do I see the least resemblance in them to the manner of Ovid. These Latin poems of Milton bear some traces of juvenility, but, for the most part, such as please us for that very reason; it is the spring time of an ardent and brilliant fancy, before the stern and sour spirit of polemical puritanism had gained entrance into his mind, the voice of the Allegro and of Comus.
[510] Warton’s essay on the Latin poetry of Milton, inserted at length in Todd’s edition.
CHAPTER XXIII.
HISTORY OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE FROM 1600 TO 1650.
Sect. I.
ON THE ITALIAN AND SPANISH DRAMA.