Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

From page 59.

Where o'er the clear translucent wave

The bending willows hang along.

Page 30.

The Scorching beams of Summer then fucceed,
With fultry beat.

Ibid.

Haffe then, Clytander, hafte to live, be quick

Page 31.

The godlike blifs of doing good:

Of comforting th' affliction of diftrefs.

Page 24.

A while he wantons near th' alluring fire,
Fond to poffefs, and eager with defire (a).

Nor is the Doctor only remarkable for his ufe of the pleonafm. The anticlimax is a figure which he uses with no less felicity:

'Tis (6) he that rolls this ball of earth,

By him the plains extended lie;

The mountain's folid bafe is fixt,

Its lofty head fupports the fky (c).

Again, he emphatically addreffes the Sun.

Thou Spring of beat! thou fource of light!
The Deity's refemblance bright!

And then adds, in the true spirit of the anticlimax,
The fount of day, by which we spy,
Creation pictur'd to the eye. p. 129.

One more inftance may be produced from p. 27.

But charity in spring eternal grows,

Nor ruin'd worlds nor changing feafon knows.

The Doctor is likewise to be admired for his epithets.Thefe, other poets meanly draw from fome quality of the object they are defcribing; but our Author difdains fuch narrow attachment: for inftance, Glittering has no connec→

(a) Akin to pleonafm is the Wire-drawing a thought. Ovid among the Romans, and Marino among the Italians, were the greatest masters of this accomplishment. The French in general re great proficients in this way; and, in our own ifland, the mob of gentlemen who write with eafe. To these our Author may be added: See, efpecially, his epiftle to Myrtillo, his Calypfo's grotto, the Morning adoration, and St. Dennis.

(b) God.

(c) Page 120,

[blocks in formation]

.

tion with Pain, nor has Gloominess any neceffary relation to Silence, yet do glittering pain, and gloomy filence, make a fine figure in the Doctor's poems. Shining death, and gay deftruction, which he likewife ufes, are not, indeed, quite fo new; yet have they as little relation to the nouns with which they are coupled. May not the following lines also be included in this cenfure? p. 68.

Where all is fometimes gentle, calm, and bright,

And not a hub difturbs th' enchanting fight.

as they are just as fenfible as,

What horrid filence does invade my eye? (d)

Again, p. 89.

Ye rocks, ye groves, ye murm'ring ftreams,

Ye folitary walks, to contemplation fweet

Devoted! and the focial joy of learn'd'

Difcourfe; could you repeat what you have heard,
Old Delphos then were folitude to thee!

Thefe lines are at leaft as myfterious, tho' lefs fonorous, than any ever pronounced from the tripod; but with this advantage, that if those generally had two meanings, to mislead,—the • Doctor's have no meaning at all, and therefore cannot mislead. The fame remark may be applicable to his

Mirth in forrow! cafe in toils! p. 152.

And to the following lines, in which the Doctor compares
Pope's works to a fine lady. p. 114.

Like thine his charms more ftudy'd more they please,
Just tho' fublime, majeftic yet with ease;
Crowded yet free, without confufion throng,
Proportion'd fymmetry attends each fong.

But left thefe inftances fhould prevail on our Readers to think that the Doctor has not always ideas affixed to his words, we shall now quote fome paffages which will prove, that he has fometimes condefcended to lower his conceptions to vulgar apprehenfion.

In his poem entitled, Morning Adoration, he thus draws an argument for man's praifing his Creator, from the adoration paid him by the birds.

Greater reafon I,

Than they irrational, and void of thought,
Mechanic tipes by God's great hand, perhaps,
To mufic tun'd, whofe warbling flops are fill'd
By finger of Omnipotence

(a) ANONYMOUS.

In the fame ftrain, a little after, he ftiles God the great mufic-mafter.

What would Longinus, who blamed a poet for calling Boreas a Piper, think of fuch verses?

Addison, if we remember right, cenfures an antient poet for representing Homer as pouring out a ftream, which his fucceffors are lapping up; but could that critic have any objection to the following image?

Still all my goods in ftreams of bounty flow'd.

Put this line, and the two next, on canvafs, and fee what a figure they will make.

Thou faw't the fhield inglorious caft away,

And trembling pannic shake the frighted day.

Again,

Ye mountains! bounding o'er the humble plains,

Your cloud-dividing fummits gayly nod.

Will the reader be at a lofs to guess whether the poet nodded or flept here?

Is there not new imagery in the fubfequent lines?

Behold the purple-fpangled dawn,
Embroiders o'er the pearly lawn;
And drilling thro' the milky way,
In faffron robe precedes the day.

He also talks of torturing every feature into drefs, and in page 84 we have thefe remarkable lines.

For you the ocean wide extends his course,
The floating path, that guides to diftant foils,
And wells the dancing barge along his waves.

The Doctor not only difdains words ufed by Milton, Pope, and others; but affixes new meanings to old words, and boldly creates new ones.

Thus any of these gentlemen write ftupendous, but our Author, who very well knows that we have not polyfyllables enough in our language, calls it ftupenduous; and on the fame principle of reformation, he makes dipped, bedipt; and tuned, intun'd. Again, the word scan fignifies, in English, either to examine a verfe, by counting the feet, or to examine any other thing nicely; but our poet makes it mean, to share: a fignification, of which, we will venture to fay, Mr. Johnfon is entirely ignorant:

One common fate with other mortals sean,
For he who liv'd a monarch, dies a man.

[blocks in formation]

Thus likewife panoply, in Milton, implies a complete fuit of armour; but our Author makes it ftand for a starry sky. See page 164.

He has alfo enriched our language with fome new words, as white, a verb; fenfual, a noun; combine, a noun; and ingleam, a verb: and he has fhewn us, that we may place the accent on the first fyllable of perfume, and forlorn; not to mention fome others, with which Dr. Drummond's works are enriched, to the no small advantage of the northern inhabitants of this island.

Sed amoto queramus feria ludo.

Altho' the Doctor never rifes above the middling, yet some of his pieces are much fuperior to others, especially the churchhymns; and if he had wrote nothing but the Nativity, the Paffion, and the Venite, we should at least have acknowleged, that ten fuch poets make a Tate.

[ocr errors]

Moft of those who, of late, have attempted to verfify paffages of Scripture, have neither fufficiently attended to the fublime fimplicity of the original, nor preferved the customs of the East. Our Poet, too, has not only fallen into this error, in the Lamentation for the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, (where he makes David talk of preparing garlands for Saul's urn, of laurel wreaths, and golden crowns, and of Jonathan's guiding the furious car mid flaughtered ranks ;) but his paraphrafe of Let the floods clap their hands,' (not to mention many others) fufficiently fhews, that he has but an incompetent idea of oriental fimplicity.

And thou, Old Ocean, white thy fhore,

With foamy furge of plaufive roar, &c.

It muft, however, be confeffed, that the Doctor has avoided another fault very common with Christian poets, --the introducing Heathen divinities into their religious compofitions; for excepting Janus and Æolus, no others are mentioned.

Be

Upon the whole, tho' we cannot help declaring, that we think Dr. Drummond a very indifferent poet, he however appears to be, what is of more confequence, a good man. fides the poem already mentioned with fome degree of approbation, the Nightingale and Thrush, the Epiftle from a Lady to her Hufband in America, the Imitation of Horace's feventh Ode of the fourth book, and efpecially one of Anacreon's, may be read with fatisfaction; but more especially the following lines from the 13th of the Corinthians :

What troops of nymphs divine to thee belong,
Fair Charity-With downcaft blufhing grace
Here virgin Modefly conceals her face;

Mu

Humility with diftant ftep attends;
And kind Benevolence her arm extends;
There tender Pity wipes the falling tear;
And meek Forgiveness teaches how to bear;
Unwearied Patience fmiles beneath distress,
And fond Devotion lifts the hand to blefs.

Altho' the Doctor has declared, that if his Lydia approved his poetry, he should be heedlefs what fnarling critics faid, yet do we hope, that he will endeavour, in his future publications, to avoid the improprieties he has fallen into, in many of the pieces now published: the poetry of which, (to use a phrase of his own) may very emphatically be stiled gurgling foam.

3

The Natural Hiftory of Aleppo, and parts adjacent. Containing a defcription of the city, and the principal natural productions in its neighbourhood; together with an account of the climate, inhabitants, and difeafes; particularly of the plague, with the methods used by the Europeans for their prefervation. By Alexander Ruffel, M. D. 4to. 15s. Millar.

A

LEPPO is one of the most antient and noble cities in the Eaft. Next to Conftantinople, and Grand Cairo, it is the greatest city, for extent, inhabitants, and trade, under the dominion of the Turk. It is the capital of Syria, now called Haleb, antiently Berrhea. A prospect of the town is prefixed to Maundrell's travels, and a large description is given of it in the Itinerarium Cotovici, p. 406. It has produced many learned men; in particular Omar ben Abdaliziz, who wrote the hiftory of Aleppo in ten volumes*: The Arabians have fome fhort fentences, in which they give the character of every confiderable city in the Eaft; and of Aleppo, they fay, on account of the great traffic carried on there, it makes men covetous.' It has fuffered many revolutions, a fhort abftract of which may be read in Monf. D'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale.

6

Our accounts of Syria are very imperfect: we have no chart of that country that deferves any notice. And therefore the public is obliged to Dr. Ruffel for the information he has communicated. His firft defign was to give an account of the epidemic diseases at Aleppo, and particularly of the plague which raged three years during his refidence there. A long ♦ and extenfive practice among all ranks and degrees of peo*As Haleb fignifies Milk, this author has entitled his work, The Cream of Haleb.

K 4

•ple,

« AnteriorContinuar »