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Josophical odes, where the sentiments are chiefly inspired by virtue, friendship, and humanity. Of this kind are many of Horace's odes, and several of our best modern lyric productions; and here the ode possesses that middle region, which, as I observed, it sometimes occupies. Fourthly, festive and amorous odes, calculated merely for pleasure and amusement. Of this naturc, are all Anacreon's; some of Horace's; and a great number of songs and modern productions, that claim to be of the lyric species. The reigning character of these, ought to be elegance, smoothness, and gaiety.

One of the chief difficulties in composing odes, arises from that enthusiasm which is understood to be a characteristic of lyric poetry. A professed ode, even of the moral kind, but more especially if it attempt the sublime, is expected to be enlivened and animated, in an uncommon degree. Full of this idea, the poet, when he begins to write an ode, if he has any real warmth of genius, is apt to deliver himself up to it, without control or restraint; if he has it not, he strains after it, and thinks himself bound to assume the appearance of being all fervour and all flame. In either case, he is in great hazard of becoming extravagant. The licentiousness. of writing without order, method, or connection, has infected the ode more than any other species of poetry. Hence, in the class of heoric odes, we find so few that one can read with pleasure. The poet is out of sight in a moment. He gets up into the clouds; becomes so abrupt in his transitions, so eccentric and irregular in his motions, and of course so obscure, that we essay in vain to follow him, or to partake of his raptures. I do not require, that an ode should be as regular in the structure of its parts, as a didactic, or an epic poem. But still, in every composition, there ought to be a subject; there ought to be parts which make up a whole there should be a connection of those parts with one another. The transitions from thought to thought may be light and delicate, such as are prompted by a lively fancy'; but still they should be such as preserve the connection of ideas, and show the author to be one who thinks, and not one who raves. Whatever authority may be pleaded for the incoherence and disorder of lyric poetry, nothing can be more certain, than that any composition which is so irregular in its method, as to become obscure to the bulk of readers, it is so much worse upon that account.*

"La plupart de ceux qui parlent de l'enthousiasme de l'ode, en parlent comme s'ils étoient eux-mêmes dans le trouble qu'ils veulent définir. Ce ne sont que grands mots de fureur divine, de transports de l'âme, de mouvemens

The extravagant liberty which several of the modern lyric writers assume to themselves in the versification, increases the disorder of this species of poetry. They prolong their periods to such a degree, they wander through so many different measures, and employ such a variety of long and short lines, corresponding in rhyme at so great a distance from each other, that all sense of melody is utterly lost. Whereas lyric composition ought, beyond every other species of poetry, to pay attention to melody and beauty of sound; and the versification of those odes may be justly accounted the best, which renders the harmony of the measure most sensible to every common

ear.

Pindar, the great father of lyric poetry, has been the occasion of leading his imitators into some of the defects I have now mentioned. His genius was sublime; his expressions are beautiful and happy; his descriptions picturesque. But finding it

a very barren subject to sing the praises of those who had gained the prize in the public games, he is perpetually digressive, and fills up his poems with fables of the gods and heroes, that have little connection either with his subject or with one another. The ancients admired him greatly, but as many of the histories of particular families and cities to which he alludes are now unknown to us, he is so obscure, partly from his subjects, and partly from his rapid, abrupt manner of treating them, that, notwithstanding the beauty of his expression, our pleasure in reading him is much diminished. One would imagine, that many of his modern imitators thought the best way to catch his spirit, was to imitate his disorder and obscurity. In several of the choruses of Euripides and Sophocles, we have the same kind of lyric poetry as in Pindar, carried on with more

de lumières, qui, mis bout-à-bout dans des phrases pompeuses, ne produisent pourtant aucune idée distincte. Si on les en croit, l'essence de l'enthousiasme est de ne pouvoir être compris que par les esprits du première ordre, à la tête desquels ils se supposent, et dont ils excluent tous ceux que osent ne les pas entendre. Le beau désordre de l'ode est un effet de l'art; mais il faut prendre garde de donner trop d'étendue à ce terme. On autoriseroit par-là tous les écarts imaginables. Un poëte n'auroit plus qu'à exprimer avec force toutes les pensées qui lui viendroient successivement; il se tiendroit dispensé d'en examiner le rapport, et de se faire un plan, dont toutes les parties se prêtassent mutuellement des beautés. Il n'y auroit ni commencement, ni milieu, ni fin, dans son ouvrage; et cependant l'auteur se croiroit d'autant plus sublime, qu'il seroit moins raisonnable. Mais qui produiroit une pareille composition dans l'esprit du lecteur? Elle ne laisseroit qu'un étourdissement, causé par la magnificence et l'harmonie des paroles, sans y faire naître que des idées confuses, qui chasseroient l'une ou l'autre, au lieu de concourir ensemble à fixer et à éciainer l'esprit."-(Euvres de M. De la Motte, tom. i. Discours sur l'Ode.

clearness and connection, and at the same time, with much sublimity.

Of all the writers of odes, ancient or modern, there is none, that in point of correctness, harmony, and happy expression, can vie with Horace. He has descended from the Pindaric rapture to a more moderate degree of elevation; and joins connected thought and good sense with the highest beauties of poetry. He does not often aspire beyond that middle region, which I mentioned as belonging to the ode; and those odes, in which he attempts the sublime, are perhaps not always his best. The peculiar character, in which he excels is grace and elegance; and in this style of composition, no poet has ever attained to a greater perfection than Horace. No poet supports a moral sentiment with more dignity, touches a gay one more happily, or possesses the art of trifling more agreeably when he chooses to trifle. His language is so fortunate, that with a single word or epithet, he often conveys a whole description to the fancy. Hence he ever has been, and ever will continue to be, a favourite author with all persons of taste.

Among the Latin poets of later ages, there have been many imitators of Horace. One of the most distinguished is Casimir, a Polish poet of the last century, who wrote four books of odes. In graceful ease of expression, he is far inferior to the Roman. He oftener affects the sublime; and in the attempt, like other lyric writers, frequently becomes harsh and unnatural. But, on several occasions, he discovers a considerable degree of original genius, and poetical fire. Buchanan, in some of his lyric compositions, is very elegant and classical.

Among the French, the odes of Jean Baptiste Rousseau have been much and justly celebrated. They possess great beauty, both of sentiment and expression. They are animated, without being rhapsodical; and are not inferior to any poetical productions in the French language.

In our own language, we have several lyric compositions of considerable merit. Dryden's Ode on St. Cecilia is well known.

There is no ode whatever of Horace's, without great beauties. But though I may be singular in my opinion, I cannot help thinking that in some of those odes which have been much admired for sublimity (such as Ode iv. lib. 4. "Qualem ministrum fulminis alitem." &c.) there appears somewhat of a strained and forced effort to be lofty. The genius of this amiable poet shows itself, according to my judgment, to greater advantage, in themes of a more temperate kind

Mr. Grey is distinguished in some of his odes, both for tenderness and sublimity; and in Dodsley's Miscellanies, several very beautiful lyric poems are to be found. As to professed Pindaric odes, they are, with a few exceptions, so incoherent, as seldom to be intelligible. Cowley, at all times harsh, is doubly so in his Pindaric compositions. In his Anacreontic odes, he is much happier. They are smooth and elegant; and, indeed, the most agreeable, and the most perfect, in their kind, of all Mr. Cowley's poems.

LECTURE XL.

DIDACTIC POETRY-DESCRIPTIVE POETRY.

HAVING treated of pastoral and lyric poetry, I proceed next to Didactic poetry; under which is included a numerous class of writings. The ultimate end of all poetry, indeed of every composition, should be, to make some useful impression on the mind. This useful impression is most commonly made in poetry, by indirect methods; as by fable, by narration, by representation of characters; but didactic poetry openly professes its intention of conveying knowledge and instruction. It differs, therefore, in the form only, not in the scope and substance, from a philosophical, a moral, or a critical treatise in prose. At the same time, by means of its form, it has several advantages over prose instruction. By the charm of versification and numbers, it renders instruction more agreeable; by the descriptions, episodes, and other embellishments, which it may interweave, it detains and engages the fancy; it fixes also useful circumstances more deeply in the memory. Hence it is a field, wherein a poet may gain great honour, may display both much genius, and much knowledge and judgment.

It may be executed in different manners. The poet may choose some instructive subject, and he may treat it regularly, and in form; or without intending a great or regular work, he may only inveigh against particular vices, or make some moral observations on human life and characters, as is commonly done in satires and epistles. All these come under the denomination of didactic poetry.

The highest species of it, is a regular treatise on some philosophical, grave, or useful subject. Of this nature we have

several, both ancient and modern, of great merit and character. such as Lucretius's six books De Rerum Natura, Virgil's Georgics, Pope's Essay on Criticism, Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination, Armstrong on Health, Horace's, Vida's, and Boileau's Art of Poetry.

In all such works, as instruction is the professed object, the fundamental merit consists in sound thought, just principles, clear and apt illustrations. The poet must instruct; but he must study, at the same time, to enliven his instructions, by the introduction of such figures, and such circumstances, as may amuse the imagination, may conceal the dryness of his subject, and embellish it with poetical painting. Virgil, in his Georgics, presents us here with a perfect model. He has the art of raising and beautifying the most trivial circumstances in rural life. When he is going to say, that the labour of the country must begin in spring, he expresses himself thus:

Vere novo, gelidus canis cum montibus humor
Liquitur, et Zephyro putris se gleba resolvit ;
Depresso incipiat jam tum mihi taurus aratro

Ingemere, et sulco attritus splendescere vomer.*—I. 43.

Instead of telling his husbandman in plain language, that his crops will fail through bad management, his language is,

Heu, magnum alterius frustra spectabis acervum,
Concussaque famem in sylvis solabere quercu.t-I. 158.

Instead of ordering him to water his grounds, he presents us with a beautiful landscape:

Ecce supercilio clivosi tramitis undam

Elicit? illa cadens raucum per lævia murmur

Saxa ciet; scatebrisque arentia temperat arva.‡—I. 108.

• "While yet the spring is young, while earth unbinds
Her frozen bosom to the western winds;

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While mountain snows dissolve against the sun,
And streams yet new from precipices run;

Ev'n in this early dawning of the year,

Produce the plough and yoke the sturdy steer,

And goad him till he groans beneath his toil,

Till the bright share is buried in the soil."-Dryden.

"On others' crops you may with envy look,

And shake for food the long abandon'd oak."-DRYDEN.

66 Behold when burning suns, or Sirius' beams
Strike fiercely on the field and withering stems,
Down from the summit of the neighbouring hills,
O'er the smooth stones he calls the bubbling rills;
Soon as he clears whate'er their passage staid,
And marks their future current with his spade,
Before him scattering, they prevent his pains,
And roll with hollow murmurs o'er the plains."-WARTON.

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