N° 74. FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1711. -Pendent opera interrupta VIRG. En. iv. 88. The works unfinished and neglected lie. IN my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of Chevy-Chase; I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and shew that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets; for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the Eneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the poet (whoever he was) proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature. Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must however beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers sonorous; at least, the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will see in several of the following quotations. What can be greater than either the thought or the expression in that stanza, To drive the deer with hound and horn Earl Percy took his way! The child may rue that is unborn The hunting of that day! This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles which took their rise from this quarrel of the two earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets. Audiet pugnas vitio parentum Rara juventus-HOR. 1 Od. ii. 23. Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes, What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas? The stout Earl of Northumberland His pleasure in the Scottish woods With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, Who knew full well, in time of need, To aim their shafts aright. The hounds ran swiftly through the woods The nimble deer to take, And with their cries the hills and dales Vocat ingenti clamore Cithæron Citharon loudly calls me to my way; GEORG. iii. 43. Thy hounds, Taygetus, open and pursue the prey: Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses breed: From hills and dales the cheerful cries rebound; For Echo hunts along, and propagates the sound.-DRYDEN. Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, His men in armour bright; All men of pleasant Tividale, Fast by the river Tweed, &c. If The country of the Scotch warriors, described in Adversi campo apparent, hustasque reductis EN. xi. 605. vii. 682. 712. With those who plough Saturnia's Gabine land: But to proceed: Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, Most like a baron bold, Rode foremost of the company, Whose armour shone like gold. Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, &c. Our English archers bent their bows, With that there came an arrow keen Out of an English bow, Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart, A deep and deadly blow. Eneas was wounded after the same manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley. Has inter voces, media inter talia verba, Thus, while he spake, unmindful of defence, Or hostile god, is left unknown by fame.-DRYden. But of all the descriptive parts of this song, there are none more beautiful than the four following stanzas, which have a great force and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such a one as would have shined in Homer or in Virgil: So thus did both these nobles die, He had a bow bent in his hand, An arrow of a cloth-yard long, Against Sir Hugh Montgomery The grey-goose wing that was thereon This fight did last from break of day For when they rung the ev'ning bell One may observe, likewise, that in the catalogue of the slain, the author has followed the example of the great ancient poets, not only in giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons. And with Earl Douglas there was slain Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too, Sir David Lamb so well esteem'd, The familiar sound in these names destroys the majesty of the description; for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but to shew the natural cast of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a translation of Virgil. -Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus Diis aliter visum Then Ripheus fell in the unequal fight, Heav'n thought not so.-DRYDEN. In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the same manner particularized very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that |