The flame On listening Cherwell's osier banks reclined; or playing in "Alma's guardian arms." His verses, indeed, want strength and animation; and, what is most surprising of all, are destitute of any picturesque sketches of scenery. GRAY. If he ever walked out of his own grounds, it must have been with his eyes shut. depends upon his imitation of Spenser, he does not speak of him with much regard. "The plan of the Fairy Queen,” he says, "appears to me very imperfect. His imagination very extensive, though somewhat less so, perhaps, than is generally allowed; if one considers the facility of realizing and equipping forth the virtues and vices. His metre has some advantages, though in many respects objectionable. His good-nature is visible through every part of the poem. His conjunction of the Pagan and Christian scheme (as he introduces both acting simultaneously) wholly inexcusable Much art and judgment are discovered in parts, and but little in the whole. One may entertain some doubt whether the perusal of his monstrous descriptions be not as prejudicial to true taste, as it is advantageous to the extent of imagination. Spenser to be sure expands the last; but then he expands it beyond its due limits. After all there are many favourite passages in his Fairy Queen, which will be instances of a great and cultivated genius misapplied." Some of these remarks are accurate, but the tone is cold and disagreeable. He, of whose pictures we may say, as Reynolds, I think, remarked of Rubens, that one is sufficient to illuminate a room, demands a different style of criticism. MASON. He has, however, written two poems which ought to preserve his name-The Elegy on Jessy, and the School-mistress. For purity of language, melody of versification, and simplicity of style, the elegy deserves high praise. The following stanza always affected me by its nature and tenderness. If through the garden's flowery tribes I stray, For we are spotless, Jessy, we are pure! GRAY. The "flowery tribes" is pedantic. MASON. In the School-mistress he was painting from his own remembrance of that village dame under whom he received his first instruction; he might have taken for his motto, Quæque ipse miserrima vidi. The sister beholding the perilous situation of her brother, is a very natural picture. O ruthful scene! when from a nook obscure, All playful as she sat, she grows demure; She finds full soon her wonted spirits flee; She meditates a prayer to set him free: Nor gentle pardon could this dame deny, (If gentle pardon could with dames agree) To her sad grief that swells in either eye, And wrings her so, that all for pity she could die. So is that of the urchin sullenly brooding upon his chastisement: Behind some door, in melancholy thought, Which for his dame's annoyance he designs; And still the more to pleasure him she's bent, The more doth he, perverse, her 'haviour past resent. GRAY. I like the School-mistress exceedingly; but he should have written prose; one or two fragments have impressed me with a higher opinion of his talent, penetration, and good sense, than any of his rhymes*. However, if he has not deeply enriched * This remark seems to be well-founded. His prose remains, imperfect and desultory as they are, frequently strike us by their point and truth. How full of sound thought and reflection are these observations. "Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent. ** What is often termed shyness, is nothing more than refined sense, and an indifference to common ob our literature by his invention, we owe perhaps to his suggestion the publication of those admirable Reliques of English Poetry, which have infused into the modern Muse healthier and purer blood. Having well-nigh talked down the sun, we may bid farewell to the Lyre. MASON. Without a word for our contemporaries? GRAY. Dulness is a sacred power; but there is one name to be mentioned with pleasure-Oliver Goldsmith. I happened to be with Mr. Nichols, in the Summer, at Malvern, when he received a copy of servations." This is the true reason why men of highly cultivated minds and imaginative feelings rarely shine in ordinary society. Their remarks are not understood: the coin is of a foreign country. Spenser would have been eclipsed by Mr. Wakley at a meeting of the Tail. Again, “I cannot see why people are ashamed to acknowledge their passion for popularity. The love of popularity is the love of being beloved :" this, too, shows an acquaintance with the heart. "The term Indecision in a man's character, implies an idea very nicely different from that of Irresolution; yet it has a tendency to produce it; and, like that, has often its original in excessive delicacy and refinement." In fine, if he had remembered his own saying, that love-verses, written without real passion, are often the most nauseous of all conceits, he would have given us less of Phillis and Daphne, and more of nature and common Goldsmith admired Shenstone; but what he meant by warm imagination," I cannot tell. sense. his " the Deserted Village, and being struck by the beauty of a line, I requested him to read the poem aloud. That man, said I, when he had ended, is a poet. The clearness and felicity of his diction, the homeliness of his theme, and the familiar pathos of his illustrations, delighted me. Let me predict for the author a wide and lasting reputation. He will please the many and the few; the reader and the critic; the heart and the fancy I think in London. you MASON. admire some of Mr. Johnson's verses GRAY. It is one of the few imitations possessing the fire and completeness of an original. But the very intensity of its English feeling destroys the air of resemblance. Its rage has none of the sportiveness of Juvenal, who makes even His desperate passes with a smile. Satire, as the name imports, implies a richness, a variety, and a combination of materials: London has all these; and the Moralist might anticipate some reformation of the times, if the history of every age did not teach us how difficult it is to scourge a nation into virtue. |