Sudabant etiam fauces, intrinsecus atræ, Sanguine, et ulceribus vocis via septa, coibat; Nec requies erat ulla mali, defessa jacebant Lib. vi. 1136. A plague like this, a tempest big with fate Swept with destruction. For amid the realms. Begot of Egypt, many a mighty tract The head first flam'd with inward heat, the eyes Nor e'er relax'd the sickness; the rack'd frame Lay all-exhausted, and, in silence dread, Appall'd, and doubtful mus'd the Healing Art. And told the pressing danger; nor alone Salt, with hoarse cough scarce labour'd from the throat. The limbs each trembled; every tendon twitch'd Spread o'er the hands; and from the feet extreme O'er all the frame a gradual coldness crept. Then, towards the last, the nostrils close-collaps'd; The nose acute; eyes hollow; temples scoop'd; Frigid the skin, retracted; o'er the mouth A ghastly grin; the shrivell'd forehead tense; The limbs outstretch'd, for instant death prepar'd Till with the eighth descending sun, for few Reach'd his ninth lustre, life for ever ceas'd. Were it not that the description of the plague by Thucydides would occupy too. much room, its insertion here, as an object of comparison with the Roman Bard, might gratify the curious; the concluding lines, however, of this last quotation from Lucretius will equally prove the poet's faithful attention to nature and his models; they are a transcript from the celebrated passage in Hippocrates, who has admirably thrown into one picture the various symptoms of dissolution, symptoms « well known to those that tend the dying.” Ρὶς ἐξεῖα, ὀφθαλμοι κοιλοι, κροταφοι ξυμπες ελωκότες, ώτα ψυχρά και ξυνεταλμένα, και ὁ λόβοι τῶν ἐτῶν ἀπεςραμμένοι, και τὸ δέρμα τὸ περι το μέτωπον, σκληρὸν τε και τε και περί]εζας μένον και καρφαλέον ἐον, και τὸ χρώμα το ξύμπαλος πρόσωπο χλωρον τε ἢ και μέλαν ἐὰν και τελιὸν ἢ μολιβδῶδες. το From the extracts now given the reader will be able to appreciate the merits both of the original and translation. It is with peculiar propriety that blank verse has been chosen as the medium of the latter; for though the controversy still exist with regard to the superior aptitude of blank or rhymed verse for the Epopee, there can be little doubt that in a philosophic poem, where much depends upon the fidelity of the representation, this species of metre, freed as it is from the shackles of similar termination, and possessing a dignity and variety unknown to the couplet, has very powerful claims to preference. It is impossible on a subject so multiform and intricate as that of this poem to employ rhyme, though even in the hands of a master, without great redundancy, and circumlocution, and imparting rather the air of a feeble paraphrase than of a spirited and faithful version. In the translation by Creech the couplet has led, in almost every page, to the most ridiculous redundancies; a want of taste, however, in the selection of language, is as conspicuous in Creech as a deficiency of skill and address in the management of his versification. One pleonasm out of a thousand will be adequate to shew the absurdities into which he has fallen from the dire necessity of providing a rhyme. In the sixth book, Lucretius has observed that "when an ardent fever pervades the frame, the odour of wine becomes so intolerable as to occasion, for a time, the deprivation of sense." ------Cúm membra hominis percepit fervida febris, which Creech has thus elegantly versified: In the construction of Blank Verse, however, the utmost attention is required, and the nicest ear must be exercised, in forming and arranging the style, in varying and adjusting the pauses. The mechanism of rhyme, however polished, may be acquired by practice, whereas the harmony demanded from the poet who rhymes not, is usually the result of a combination of very many lines, and not only more difficult as being more complicated, but must necessarily be accompanied with a beauty of diction and a vigour of thought which, in the couplet, are but too often compensated for, in H |