Forth from the Gate of Bliss: the Parents, the Children, and Consort, Yea, and the thought whereof supporteth the soul in its anguish ! There came England's blossom of hope, . . the beautiful Princess; Laid on his senses a weight, and suspended the sorrow for ever. They are met where Change is not known, nor Sorrow, nor Parting. When I beheld them meet, the desire of my soul overcame me; 1 In one of his few intervals of sanity, after the death of this beloved daughter, the late King gave orders, that a monument should be erected to the memory of one of her attendants, in St. George's Chapel, with the following inscription: King GEORGE III. caused to be interred near this place the body of MARY GASCOIGNE, Servant to the Princess AMELIA; and this stone to be inscribed in testimony of his grateful sense of the faithful services and attachment whom she survived only three months. This may probably be considered as the last act of his life; .. a very affecting one it is, and worthy of remembrance. Such a monument is more honourable to the King by whom it was set up, than if he had erected a pyramid. SPECIMENS, &c. THE annexed Specimens of Sir Philip Sydney's hexameters will sufficiently evince that the failure of the attempt to naturalise this fine measure in his days, was owing to the manner in which the attempt was made, not the measure itself. First shall fertile grounds not yield increase of a good seed; First the rivers shall cease to repay their floods to the ocean: First may a trusty greyhound transform himself to a tyger; First shall vertue be vice, and beauty be counted a blemish ; Ere that I leave with song of praise her praise to solemnize, Her praise, whence to the world all praise hath his only be ginning: But yet well I do find each man most wise in his own case. When Cedars to the ground fall down by the weight of an Or when a rich Rubie's price be the worth of a Walnut, Let not a Puppet abuse thy sprite, Kings' Crowns do not help From the cruel headach, nor shoes of gold do the gout heal; Sydney's pentameters appear even more uncouth than his hexameters, as more unlike their model; for, in our pronunciation, the Latin pentameter reads as if it ended with two trochees. Fortune, Nature, Love, long have contended about me, Which should most miseries cast on a worm that I am. Fortune thus 'gan say, misery and misfortune is all one, And of misfortune, fortune hath only the gift. With strong foes on land, on sea with contrary tempests, Still do I cross this wretch what so he taketh in hand. Tush, tush, said Nature, this is all but a trifle, a man's self Gives haps or mishaps, even as he ordereth his heart. But so his humor I frame, in a mould of choler adusted, That the delights of life shall be to him dolorous. Love smiled, and thus said; What joyn'd to desire is unhappy: But if he nought do desire, what can Heraclitus ail? None but I work by desire: by desire have 1 kindled in his soul Infernal agonies into a beauty divine: Where thou poor Nature left'st all thy due glory, to Fortune thus: And even in that love shall I reserve him a spite. Thus, thus, alas! woful by Nature, unhappy by Fortune; But most wretched I am, now love wakes my desire. Sydney has also given examples in his Arcadia of Anacreontic, Phaleucian, Sapphic, and Asclepiad verse, all written upon the same erroneous principle. Those persons who consider it ridiculous to write English verses upon any scheme of Latin versification, may perhaps be surprised to learn that they have read, as blank verse, many lines which are perfect Sapphics or Phaleucians. Rowe's tragedies are full of such lines. In this cave the rakehels yr'ne bars, bigge bulcked ar hamring, Brontes and Steropes, with baerlym swartie Pyracmon, These thre nere upbotching, not shapte, but partiye wel onward, A clapping fier-bolt (such as oft with rounce robel hobble, Jove to the ground clattreth) but yeet not finnished holye. Three showrs wringlye wrythen glimmring, and forciblye sowcing, Thre watrye clowds shymring to the craft they rampired hizzing, Three wheru's fierd glystring, with south winds ruffered huffling. Now doe they rayse gastly lightnings, now grislye reboundings Of ruffe raffe roaring, mens harts with terror agrysing, With peale meale ramping, with thwick thwack sturdilye thundering." Stanihurst's Virgil is certainly one of those curiosities in our literature which ought to be reprinted. Yet notwithstanding the almost incredible absurdity of this version, Stanihurst is entitled to an honourable remembrance for the part which he contributed to Holinshed's Collection of Chronicles. None of our Chroniclers possessed a mind better stored, nor an intellect more perpetually on the alert. Sydney, who failed so entirely in writing hexameters, has written concerning them in his Defence of Poesie, with the good sense and propriety of thought by which that beautiful treatise is distinguished. Let me not be thought to disparage this admirable man and delightful writer, because it has been necessary for me to show the cause of his failure in an attempt wherein I have now followed him. I should not forgive myself were I ever to mention Sydney without an expression tổ reverence and love. "Of versifying," he says, "there are two sorts, the one The Censura Literaria supplies me with two choice samples ancient, the other modern: the ancient marked the quantity of Stanihurst's Virgil. "Neere joynctlye brayeth with rufflerye rumboled Etna: Soomtyme owt it bolcketh † from bulck clouds grimly be dimmed Like fyerd pitche skorching, or flash flame sulphurus heating : Flownce to the stars towring the fire like a pellet is hurled, Ragd rocks, up raking, and guts of mounten yrented of each syllable, and, according to that, framed his verse; the modern, observing only number, with some regard of the accent; the chief life of it standeth in that like sounding of the words which we call Rhyme. Whether of these be the more excellent, would bear many speeches, the ancient, no doubt, more fit for musick, both words and time observing quantity. and more fit lively to express divers passions by the low or lofty sound of the well-weighed syllable. The latter likewise From roote up he jogleth: stoans hudge slag molten he with his Rhyme striketh a certain musick to the ear; and, in rowseth, With route snort grumbling in bottom flash furie kindling. Men say that Enceladus, with bolt haulf blasted, here harbrought, Ding'd with this squising and massive burden of Ætna, Which pres on him nailed, from broached chimnys stil heateth; fine, since it doth delight, though by another way, it obtaineth the same purpose, there being in either sweetness, and wanting in neither majesty. Truly the English, before any vulgar language I know, is fit for both sorts; for, for the ancient, the Italian is so full of vowels, that it must ever be cumbered with elisions: the Dutch so, of the other side, with consonants, that they cannot yield the sweet sliding fit for a verse. The French, in his whole language, hath not one word that As oft as the giant his brold ¶ syds croompeled altreth, So oft Sicil al shivereth, therewith flaks smoakye be hath his accent in the last syllable, saving two, called Antesparckled." "T'ward Sicil is seated, to the welkin loftily peaking, A soyl, ycleapt Liparen, from whence with flounce fury flinging, Stoans and burlye bulets, like tampounds, maynelye betowring. Under is a kennel, wheare chymneys fyrye be scorching Ruffling seems to be turbulent noise. A ruffler was formerly a boisterous bully. penultima; and little more hath the Spanish, and therefore very gracelessly may they use Dactyls; the English is subject to none of these defects. Now for Rhyme, though we do i not observe quantity, yet we observe the accent very precisely, which other languages either cannot do, or will not do so absolutely. "That Cæsura, or breathing-place, in the midst of the verse, neither Italian nor Spanish have; the French and we never almost fail of. Lastly, the very Rhyme itself the Italian cannot put in the last syllable, by the French named the Masculine Rhyme, but still in the next to the last, which the French call the Female, or the next before that, which the Italian call Sdrucciola: the example of the former is Buono Suono; of the Sdrucciola, is Femina Semina. The French, on the other side, hath both the male, as Bon Son; and the Female, as Plaise, Taise, but the Sdrucciola he hath not, where the English hath all three, as Due, True, Father, Rather, Motion, Potion, with much more, which might be said, but that already I find the trifling of this discourse is too much enlarged." The French attempted to introduce the ancient metres some years before the trial was made in England. Pasquier says, that Estienne Jodelle led the way in the year 1553, by this distich upon the poems of Olivier de Maigny, "lequel," he adds, "est vrayement une petit chef-d'œuvre." "Phoebus, Amour, Cypris, veut sauver, nourrir et orner Ton vers et chef d'umbre, de flamme, de fleurs." Pasquier himself, three years afterwards, at the solicitation of a friend, produced the following " essay de plus longue haleine:" "Rien ne me plaist sinon de te chanter, et servir et orner; Rien ne te plaist mon bien, rien ne te plaist que ma mort. Discours mensongers, trahistreux oeil, aspre cruauté, Si vaine est ma fureur, si vain est tout ce que des cieux Ou si dans le miel vous meslez un venemeux fiel, Veuillez Dieux que l'amour r'entre dedans le Chaos : Commandez, que le froid, l'eau, l'Esté, l'humide, l'ardeur : Brief que ce tout par tout tende à l'abisme de tous, Pour finir ma douleur, pour finir cette cruauté, Qui me ruine le corps, qui me ruine le cœur. Non helas que ce rond soit tout un sans se rechanger, Mais que ma Sourde se change, ou de face, ou de façons; Mais que ma Sourde se change, et plus douce escoute les voix, Voix que je seme criant, voix que je seme, riant. "Je ne dy pas," says the author, "que ces vers soient de quelque valeur, aussi ne les mets-je icy sur la monstre en intention qu'on les trouve tels; mais bien estime-je qu'ils sont autant fluides que les Latins, et à tant veux-je que l'on pense nostre vulgaire estre aucunement capable de ce subject." Pasquier's verses were not published till many years after they were written; and in the meantime Jean Antoine de Baif made the attempt upon a larger scale,.. "Toutesfois," says Pasquier, "en ce subject si mauvais parrain que non seulement il ne fut suivy d'aucun, mais au contraire descouragea un chacun de s'y employer. D'au tant que tout ce qu'il en fit estoit tant despourveu de cette naifveté qui doit accompagner nos œuvres, qu'aussi tost que cette sienne poësie voit la lumiere, elle mourut comme un avorton." The Abbé Goujet, therefore, had no reason to represent this attempt as a proof of the bad taste of the age: the bad taste of an age is proved, when vicious compositions are applauded, not when they are unsuccessful. Jeane Antoine de Baif is the writer of whom Cardinal du Perron said, "qu'il étoit bon homme, mais qu'il étoit méchant poëte François." I subjoin a specimen of Spanish hexameters, from an Eclogue by D. Esteban de Villegas, a poet of great and deserved estimation in his own country. "Licidas y Coridon, Coridon el amante de Filis, Pastor el uno de Cabras, el otro de blancas Ovejas, Tú, que los erguidos sobrepujas del hondo Timavo Y luego, torciendo el vuelo, del Aquilo al Austro." It is admitted by the Spaniards, that the fitness of their language for the hexameter has been established by Villegas; his success, however, did not induce other poets to follow the example. I know not whom it was that he followed, for he was not the first to make the attempt. Neither do I know whether it was ever made in Portugueze, except in some verses upon St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, which are Latin as well as Portugueze, and were written as a whimsical proof of the affinity of the two languages. I have met with no specimens in Italian. The complete success of the metre in Germany is well known. The Bohemians have learnt the tune, and have, like their neighbours, a translation of the Iliad in the measure of the original. This I learn accidentally from a Bohemian grammar; which shows me also, that the Bohemians make a dactyl of Achilles, probably because they pronounce the x with a strong aspirate. INDEX. A. of Kaf in search of the water of im-, Arabians, their mode of dividing the ABEL SHUFFLEBOTTOM, his Amatory Alphonso, 660. Algernon Sidney, Epitaph on, 171. Poems, 114. Ablutions, funeral, singular origin as- Abolition of slavery, celebration of the, Accuser, The, 778. Aclides, the, of the Romans, particulars Ad, the Tribe of, some interesting par- Arabs, their singular manner of taking 261. Alhambra, description of the cabinet of Araf, a place between the Heaven and Allan Cunningham, Epistle to, 209. the Hell of the Mahommedans, 312. All-knowing Bird, the, curious particu- Araucans, Song of the, during a Thun- Almanzor, the Victorious, founder of Amatory Poems of Abel Shufflebottom, Ambition, 743. derstorm, 133. Arbalist, the, some particulars concern- America, Ode written during the War Arc, Joan of. See " Joan of Arc." American Indians, Songs of the, 132- Americans, native, splendour of some 514. Ampulla, Legend of the, 25. Afflighem, Abbey of, destroyed during Amreeta, The, 622. Afreet, one of the evil genii, description of, 310. Africa, To the Genius of, 100. Agincourt, consequences of the victory Agnes Sorel, mistress to Charles the Seventh of France, anecdote of, 23. Argalus and Parthenia" of Quarles, Ark, Holy, of the Camara Santa, parti- Armour, remarks on the ancient regula- tions relating to different kinds of, 48. Amreeta, the water of immortality, the Arrabida, The Convent of, Lines written Andrew Marvel, his description of the "And they have drowned thee, then, at "And wherefore do the poor com- "And wouldst thou seek the low Animadversions on works of an immo- counsel to her husband, Charles VII., Al-ahkâf, or Winding Sands, the first 159. Alexander I., Emperor of all the Arabian saints, their habitations always Arrows, divination by, forbidden to the Arrows of the Omen, account of those illustrative of the Hindoo mythology, account of a surprising feat performed Aswamedka, the, or sacrifice of a hare, "At length hath Scotland seen," 209. "A wrinkled, crabbed man they picture Beatification, The, 779. Aymeric, Count, and Garci Ferrandez, 441. Azrael, the Angel of Death, 223. B. Bab al Jebennan, or Hell-gate, a name Babylon, ruins of, 256. Bachelors, the three holy, of the Isle of Balance of the Dead, the, an article of Baldred, St., the Confessor, 376. Ballads and Metrical Tales, 417-479. Baly, the Giant, mythological fables of, Bards, regulations to which they were bound to submit, 341. Bards, the rival, and their lays, 88. Bardsey, the Holy Islet, 347. Beaumont and Fletcher, extract from Belus, Temple of, some particulars re- "Berkeley, Old Woman of;" this Bernardes, Diogo, character of his "Beware a speedy friend, th' Arabian "Bhagvat Geeta," the, curious extract Bilderdijk, his Poem relative to the Bird of Paradise, 305. Birth-day of the world, fable of, 303. Bishop, a wicked, God's Judgment on, 428. Black Prince, the, anecdote of, 11. 499. Blood, human, drank by the Florida Indians, and formerly by the Irish, Bones of the dead, great respect paid to, Botany Bay Eclogues, 103-107. Brainerd, David, the American mis- Brazen heads, monstrous notions en- 317. "Bright on the mountain's heathy Britain, two of its cognomens derived "Brother, thou wert strong in youth," 132. Brough Bells, 465. Some particulars Bruce, fate of his heart, which had been "Bruce, The," extract from, 389. Bruno, Bishop, 448. Brunswick, the Duke of, tribute to his bravery at the battle of Waterloo, 741. Buffalo, the, its peculiar habits de- Buchanan, Dr. Claudius, extracts from Buonaparte, Ode written during the 191. Burrard, Paul, Lines to the memory of, Busaco, Convent of, memorable in the C. Cabinet of the Alhambra, description Bowles, Caroline, Lines addressed to, Cæsarian operation, supposed earliest |