stand.

From these follies and affectations, the poems of Parnell are entirely free; he has considered the language of poetry as the language of life, and conveys the warmest thoughts in the simplest expression.' Such are the observations of Goldsmith; I shall now proceed to a more particular enumeration of our Poet's productions.

66 Hesiod, or the Rise of Woman."1-It would be difficult to praise too highly the ease, the sprightliness, and the fine poetical taste of this poem; the subject is treated in a manner the most lively and agreeable; the versification is polished and musical; the images delicate and well selected; a vein of humour at once elegant and rich pervades the whole. It approaches more closely to the manner of Pope's Rape of the Lock than any poem with which I am acquainted. It has the same cadences, the same structure of lines, even the same expressions; and I consider it to have been much indebted to him for the high finish of its colours, and the exquisite beauties of its diction. This is not said in any disparagement of Parnell's powers, but I believe it to be acknowledged, that Pope took infinite pains in the revision and alteration of Parnell's poems. In speaking of the Hermit, Goldsmith says," It seems to have cost great labour

1 This Poem was first published in a Miscellany of Tonson's, which I do not happen to possess.

2 See Goldsmith's Beauties of Eng. Poetry, 1. p. 29, and Swift's Journal to Stella, Dec. 23, 25, 1712: Jan. 6, 1731, Feb. 19, 1712-3; where it appears that Swift gave Parnell hints and corrections for his poems.

both to Mr. Pope and Mr. Parnell himself to bring it to this perfection." Upon the whole, this poem will fully justify the assertion of Hume,3 at least that part of it that regards our poet. "It is sufficient to run over Cowley once; but Parnell, after the fiftieth reading, is as fresh as the first." Of the three songs which follow, Goldsmith says that two of them were written upon the Lady whom he afterwards married. There appears some "When thy beauty

reason to suppose that the first, appears," was composed by Pope; for it is mentioned as his by Lord Peterborough, in a letter to Mrs. Howard.4

The Anacreontic, "When Spring came on with fresh delight," is said to be a translation from the French. Goldsmith thinks that it is better than the original. The well known song that follows it, Gay Bacchus liking Estcourt's wine," is a translation of a poem by Augurellus.

66

Invitat olim Bacchus cœnam suos,

Comum, Jocum, Cupidinem, &c.

Parnell, in his translation, applied the characters to some of his friends; no mention is made in Pope's edition, of its being a translation: indeed the latter part is entirely Parnell's.

The "Fairy Tale" must rank among the most successful of our poet's productions; the language

3 See Hume's Essay on Simplicity and Refinement. 4 See Suffolk's Letters, vol. i. p. 161.

is simple and clear, the verse easy and natural, and the story appropriate to the style. Goldsmith says "it is incontestably one of the finest pieces in any language."

The " Pervigilium Veneris" is translated in easy and flowing versification, though too paraphrastical; yet few persons perhaps would have transferred its beauties more successfully; for the delicacy, and select brevity of its expression, would baffle any attempt to exactness of imitation. In one or two places, Parnell appears to me to have missed the meaning, as

Quando faciam, ut Chelidon, ut tacere desinam?

When shall I sing, as the swallow is now singing? When will my spring arrive, 'quando ver veniet meum !' Parnell however writes thus,

How long in coming is my lovely spring,

And when shall I, and when the swallow sing?

In the Batrachomuomachia, Parnell has preserved the mock dignity of the original; without ever stepping beyond the limits of a just propriety. The great defect of his version arises from his not having translated the Greek names of the combatants, which are formed with considerable humour, and this omission renders the English poem comparatively flat.

I am not sure whether the critics have decided as to the time in which this burlesque poem was written; or how they have accounted for its having

borrowed the venerable name of the father of poetry; but I will just mention that there is one passage in it, which at once precludes it from being the production of the author of the Iliad and Odyssey, unless an interpolation by a later hand should be suspected.

"Devoid of rest, with aching brows I lay,

Till cocks proclaim'd the crimson dawn of day."

There is no mention of this bird in Homer; probably it was not known till the return of the army of Alexander, who brought the Indian Jungle fowl home with them from the East, and domesticated them in Europe.

The Epistle to Pope,1 Goldsmith says, is one of the finest compliments that was ever paid to any poet, he hints at Parnell's description of his residence in Ireland being splenetic and untrue: and says that this poem gave much offence to his neighbours, who considered that they could supply him with learning and poetry, without an importation from Twickenham.

The translation of some lines in the Rape of the Lock into rhyming Latin verse, was owing to the following circumstance. Before the Rape of the Lock was finished,2 Pope was reading it to Swift,

1 Johnson says, "that the verses on Barrenness, in the poem to Pope, are borrowed from Secundus, but he could not find the passage.

2 I rose from a late perusal of the Lutrin of Boileau,

who listened attentively, while Parnell went in and out of the room appearing to take no notice of it. However, by dint of his good memory, he brought away the description of the toilet pretty exactly. This he versified, and on the next day, when Pope was reading the poem to some friends, he insisted that part of the description was stolen from an old monkish manuscript. Goldsmith says he was assured of the truth of this account; he adds, that it was not till after some time that Pope was delivered from the confusion which it at first produced.

The Eclogue on Health has the general merit of Parnell's poetry; musical versification and poetical language: yet we occasionally meet with that which I suppose, it took Pope so much labour to improve, flat and prosaic expressions.

The Elegy to an "Old Beauty," has much of that sprightliness and graceful ease which Pope possessed, and which gave a lustre and worth to trifles. There is, however, a couplet in it, that seems to me to be defective, and wanting in con

with a strong and pleasing conviction, not only of Pope's immeasurable superiority over the French poet, in poetical conception of his subject, in brilliant fancy, variety of character, elegance of allusion; but also in good sense, and truth, and adherence to nature; Boileau's ground-plot is mean, his sentiments strained, and his picture overcharged; he is struggling for an effect that his subject does not admit, nor his poetical powers enable him to supply.