tête-à tête companion at the Round Table tells us, that when this school arose, all the common-place figures of poetry, tropes, allegories, personifications, with the whole heathen mythology, were instantly discarded;' and that a classical allu'sion was considered as a piece of antiquated foppery.' And yet, in the greatest production of the master of this school, a passage occurs which might be suspected to have suggested this very poem of Mr. Hunt's. Whether he was indebted to it for the first thought of the Nymphs,' or not, the lines to which we allude, may challenge comparison with any passage that can be cited from the poems of his contemporaries, in respect of the elegant use the Author has made in them of the beautiful mythology' of the ancients. Although they have been already quoted in our Journal, we must beg leave to recal them to our readers: $ In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched 'On the soft grass through half a summer's day, With music lulled his indolent repose: C And, in some fit of weariness, if he When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear 'A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched, By echo multiplied from rock or cave) Swept in the storin of chase, as Moon and Stars Glance rapidly along the cloudy heavens, When winds are blowing strong. The Traveller slaked "His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked The Naiad. Sunbeams upon distant hills Gliding apace, with shadows in their train, The Zephyrs, fanning as they passed, their wings, From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth 'In the low vale, or on steep mountain side; 'And, sometimes, intermixed with stirring horns The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god.' No one can doubt that the author of these lines feels and appreciates all the beauties of classic fable, to which, by the power of a kindred imagination, he has imparted so picturesque a character; but still he alludes to them as the fictions of a remote superstition, not as things which could for a moment assume in his own mind the place of realities. The philosophical nature of his poem, forbade, it may be said, any other use of the ancient mythology, than that of a passing allusion. We are, however, satisfied from comparing the effect of this passage with that produced by Mr. Hunt's long poem, that Mr. Wordsworth has taken by far the best method of restoring that beautiful mythology' to its proper estimation. The fact is, that fiction interests us only as it appears to us to be in itself credible, and so to represent truth, or otherwise as having once been believed in, it is associated with human interests and human feelings. The mythology of Greece was the matter of religious belief to the idolatrous vulgar, and its influence upon their minds was that of reality. We know these things were believed in as true, and we can by the help of imagination conceive of the effect which, so believed in, they must have had upon those ignorant idolaters, whom nevertheless, by a further exercise of imagination, we indulge ourselves in conceiving of as beings far more elevated than the vulgar of our own times. Viewed through the medium of their own classics, those ancient nations become in themselves objects of romantic interest, and the strong sympathy by which we learn to identify ourselves with the actors of the stories of antiquity, extends to the silliest and most monstrous delusions which superstition ever palmed upon credulity. Incredible as they seem, the imagination cannot for a moment entertain the illusion, otherwise than as we for the moment personify the beings to whom that illusion was truth, and transfer to the objects of their belief, the indefinite feelings which are connected in our own minds with things that do indeed exist. But when, neither as the matter of ancient belief, nor as philosophical allegories, but as imaginable possibilities, the demonology of Paganism is sincerely taken as a theme of highwrought invocation and description, without any intimation on the part of the poet, that he is acting a character, and we are called upon to listen to his second-hand legends as grave matters of fact, the mind resents at once the undisguised absurdity of the fiction; we should think of surrendering ourselves to the elegant nonsense of naiads,' and 'limniads,' and 'oreads,' and 'dryads,' just about as soon as we should sympathize with the reveries of a Swedenborgian. Those beautiful mythological personages, dissociated from the circumstances which lent them a sort of credibility, and brought out of their obscurity into broad day, suffer much the same degrading violence as the marble majesties of Greece, when torn from their climate and their pedestals, to form the unimpressive ranks of a museum. An exception may be made in favour of those very ethereal deities, the imbodied essences,' as Mr. Hunt terms them, of all the grand and lovely qualities of nature,' which resolve themselves at a touch into the elements of natural scenery : they awaken, when their names occur, ideas scarcely different from what the simple forms of expression would suggest, with which they have become familiarly convertible. A naiad and a stream mean in plain English much the same, and do equally well even in an English landscape. There is also another case in which these mythological descriptions may please, and that is, when they recal some fine painting, in which a palpable form of beauty has been given to the unsubstantial imagery. This pleasure, however, is more nearly allied to the pleasures of art, than those which are strictly proper to the imagination. Mr. Hunt has evidently copied much of his poetry, not from nature, but from Le Poussin. He describes pictures instead of suggesting ideal images. He defines to the very grouping and attitude of his figures, and seems incapable of conceiving of any thing that he has not first seen upon the canvas. We suspect that his fancy is by no means of exuberant fertility he can feel, but he cannot invent; he has the eye of a connoisseur, and the pencil of a colourist, but he is a mere artist. His leading poem, The Nymphs,' affords, we think, sufficient proof of this; it is, as he says of Pope's Homer, an elegant mistake.' Our readers, however, may claim the right of judging for themselves: we willingly indulge them with a few extracts. Part the First opens with the following rapturous invocation : 'Spirit, who waftest me where'er I will, And seest with finer eyes, what infants see, Feeling all lovely truth With the wise health of everlasting youth, Frank, and quick-dimpled to all social glee, VOL. X. N.S. For a new smiling sense has shot down through me, And from the clouds, like stars, bright eyes are beckoning to me. Arrived! arrived! O shady spots of ground, What calmness ye strike round, Hushing the soul as if with hand on lips! Than the poor stag's, who startled, as he sips, Perks up with timid mouth, from which the water drips? O ye whom ancient wisdom, in it's graces, Made guardians of these places; To have their fill of pipes and leafy playing, Ere they drink heavenly change from nectar bowls; Nymphs of all names, and woodland Geniuses, I see you, here and there, among the trees, Shrouded in noon-day respite of your mirth: Is your unquarrelling voice among the leaves; And now I find, whose are the boughs and stirrings That make the delicate birds dart so in whisks and whirrings. Mr. Hunt tells us he sees all this: but does he, as he ought, make his reader see it? Or is it not rather Mr. Hunt solus, looking towards the side scene, and informing his audience of the wonders which he descries, but which never come upon the stage? Is there any illusion in this rhapsody? Do the figures in the landscape move, or does not the whole smell of oil and varnish? Then as to the phraseology, which the Author means to partake of antique quaintness; we have been sometimes tempted to suspect that the printer had maliciously changed a word, here and there, to give the passage the effect of Hunt travestie. The sudden laps' of the Dryads, the back-turned phea'sant' and handy squirrel,' the fountain's tongue' beginning to lap,' the whiffling tones of rills,' or 'rounder murmur, 'glib and flush, of the escaping gush,' are in truth dazzling Lovelties which we scarcely know whether to ascribe to the oet or the compositor. We cannot pretend to follow our Author through the whole of his needle-work exhibition of nymphs. There are some passages which are very pleasing, and the poem exhibits throughout the characteristics of indisputable talent. The following bears all the marks of a design for a drawing: it contains tolerably good directions for an artist, but there is no appeal to the fancy. 'There's a whole bevy, there in that recess Rounding from the main stream: some sleep, some dress And the strange crooked quivering which it makes, The song of the Nepheliads,' is the prettiest thing in the poem: it has more of the lyric spirit as well as measure, and is upou the whole less disfigured by affectation. 'Ho! we are the nepheliads, we Who bring the clouds from the great sea, All the love 'twixt earth and air. We it is with soft new showers |