With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Strange cozenage!...”
are as fine as any eight lines in Lucretius. Told him of an excellent remark of —— on this, that Dryden's passage wholly lacks the mystery and great superhuman air of Lucretius. Mr. G. warmly agreed.
He regards it as a remarkable sign of the closeness of the church of England to the roots of life and feeling in the country, that so many clergymen should have written so much good poetry. Who, for instance? I asked. He named Heber, Moultrie, Newman (Dream of Gerontius), and Faber in at least one good poem, “The poor Labourer” (or some such title), Charles Tennyson. I doubt if this thesis has much body in it. He was for Shelley as the most musical of all our poets. I told him that I had once asked M. to get Tennyson to write an autograph line for a friend of mine, and Tennyson had sent this:—
“Coldly on the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day.”
So I suppose the poet must think well of it himself. 'Tis [pg 485]
Table-Talk
from the second Locksley Hall, and describes a man after passions have gone cool.
Mr. G.—Yes, in melody, in the picturesque, and as apt simile, a fine line.
Had been trying his hand at a translation of his favourite lines of Penelope about Odysseus. Said that, of course, you could translate similes and set passages, but to translate Homer as a whole, impossible. He was inclined, when all is said, to think Scott the nearest approach to a model.