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The slayer of himself yet saw I there,

The gore congeal'd was clotted in his hair:
With eyes half-clos'd and gaping mouth he lay,
And grim as when he breath'd his sullen soul away.

"Cati

This reminds me of that forcible description in a
writer whose fancy was eminently strong,
lina vero, longe a suis, inter hostium cadavera
repertus est, paululum etiam spirans ; ferociam-
que animi, quam habuerat vivus, in vultu reti-

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nens. Nor must I omit that affecting image in

Spenser, who ever excels in the pathetic:

And him besides there lay upon the grass
A dreary corse, whose life away did pass,
All wallow'd in his own, yet lukewarm, blood,
That from his wound yet welled fresh, alas !
In which a rusty knife fast fixed stood,

And made an open passage for the gushing flood.*

When Palamon perceived his rival had escaped,

He stares, he stamps the ground;

The hollow tow'r with clamour rings around:
With briny tears he bath'd his fetter'd feet,
And dropp'd all o'er with agony of sweat.

Fairy Queen, Book I. Canto 9. Stanza 36.

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Nor

Nor are the feelings of Palamon less strongly impressed on the reader, where he says,

The rage of Jealousy then fir'd his soul,
And his face kindled like a burning coal :
Now cold despair succeeding in her stead,
To livid paleness turn'd the glowing red.*

If we pass on from descriptions of persons to those of things, we shall find this poem equally excellent. The temple of Mars is situated with propriety in a country desolate and joyless; all around it,

The landscape was a forest wide and bare,
Where neither beast nor human-kind repair;
The fowl, that scent afar, the borders fly,
And shun the bitter blast, and wheel about the sky.
A cake of scurf lies baking on the ground,

And prickly stubs instead of trees are found.

The

* These passages are chiefly of the pathetic sort; for which Dryden in his tragedies is far from being remarkable. But it is not unusual for the same person to succeed in describing externally a distressful character, who may miserably fail in putting proper words in the mouth of such a character. word, so much more difficult is DRAMATIC than DESCRIPTIVE poetry!

In a

The temple itself is nobly and magnificently studied; and, at the same time, adapted to the furious nature of the god to whom it belonged; and carries with it a barbarous and tremendous idea.

The frame of burnish'd steel, that cast a glare
From far, and seem'd to thaw the freezing air.
A strait long entry to the temple led,
Blind with high walls and horror over-head:
Thence issued such a blast and hollow roar,
As threaten'd from the hinge to heave the door;
In through the door a northern light there shone;
'Twas all it had, for windows there were none.
The gate of adamant, eternal frame,

Which, hew'd by Mars himself, from Indian quarries

came.

This scene of terror is judiciously contrasted by the pleasing and joyous imagery of the temples of Venus and Diana. The figure of the last goddess is a design fit for GUIDO to exe

cute :

The graceful Goddess was array'd in green ;
About her feet were little beagles seen,

That watch'd with UPWARD eyes the motions of their

queen.

But,

But, above all, the whole description of the entering the lists,* and of the ensuing combat, which is told at length, in the middle of the third book, is marvellously spirited; and so lively, as to make us spectators of that interesting and magnificent tournament. Even the ab. surdity of feigning ancient heroes, such as Theseus and Lycurgus, present at the lists and a modern combat, is overwhelmed and obliterated amidst the blaze, the pomp, and the profusion, of such animated poetry. Frigid and phlegmatic must be the critic, who could have leisure dully and soberly to attend to the anachronism on so striking an occasion. The mind is whirled away by a torrent of rapid imagery, and propriety is forgot.

The tale of Sigismunda and Guiscardo is heightened with many new and affecting touches by Dryden. I shall select only the following picture of Sigismunda, as it has the same attitude

The reader is desired all along to remember, that the first delineation of all these images is in Chaucer, or Boccace; and it might be worth examining how much Dryden has added purely from his own stock.

tude in which she appears in a famous piece of CORREGGIO.

Mute, solemn sorrow, free from female noise,
Such as the majesty of grief destroys:

For bending o'er the cup, the tears she shed,
Seem'd by the posture to discharge her head,
O'erfill'd before; and oft (her mouth apply'd
To the cold heart) she kiss'd at once, and cry'd.

There is an incomparable wildness in the vision of Theodore and Honoria,* that represents the furious spectre of "the horseman ghost that came thundering for his prey;" and of the gaunt mastiffs that tore the sides of the shrieking damsel he pursued; which is a subject worthy the pencil of Spagnoletti, as it partakes of that savageness which is so striking to the imagination. I shall confine myself to point out only two passages,

VOL. II.

C

It is a

*This is one of Boccace's most serious stories. curious thing to see at the head of an edition of Boccace's tales, printed at Florence in 1573, a privilege of Gregory XIII. who says, that in this he follows the steps of Pius V. his predecessor, of blessed memory, and which threatens with severe punishments, all those who shall dare to give any disturbance to those booksellers to whom this privilege is granted. There is also a decree of the inquisition in favour of this edition, in which the holy father caused some alterations to be made. LONGUERUANA, Tom. II. p. 62. a Berlin, 1754.

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