If the subjects of this canto appear more noble and elevated than those which usually employ the episodes of heroic poetry, that of the ensuing one must strike with still superior dignity. Having acquainted us with the philosophy of his admired sage, the poet now, by a beautiful kind of allegory, instructs us in his religion. Astragon had dedicated three temples, to PRAYER, to PENITENCE, and to PRAISE. The Temple of Prayer is described as a building quite plain, open, and without bells; since nothing should tempt or summon to an office to which our own wants invite us. The duty of Penitence being a severity unpleasing to nature, its temple is contrived, by its solemn and uncommon appearance, to catch the sense. It is a vast building of black marble, hung with black, and furnished with that “dim religious light” which poets have so finely employed to excite kindred ideas of gloom and melancholy: but none, I think, have painted it with such strength of colouring as our author:
Black curtains hide the glass; whilst from on high
A winking lamp still threatens all the room,
As if the lazy flame just now would die:
Such will the sun’s last light appear at doom.
A tolling bell calls to the temple; and every other circumstance belonging to it is imagined with great propriety and beauty.
But the poet’s greatest exertions are reserved for his favourite temple of Praise. A general shout of joy is the summons to it. The building, in its materials and architecture, is gay and splendid beyond the most sumptuous palace. The front is adorned with figures of all kinds of musical instruments; all, as he most beautifully expresses it,
That joy did e’er invent, or breath inspir’d,
Or flying fingers touch’d into a voice.
The statues without, the pictures within, the decorations, and the choir of worshippers, are all suited with nice judgment, and described with genuine poetry. This distinguished canto concludes with these noble stanzas, the sum and moral, as it were, of the whole.