preffed, and large additions are made, in a ftyle more courtly and ingratiating. We fhall take notice of the most confiderable of thefe variations, as we go along; only premifing, in this place, that the largest of the retrenched paffages related to the atrocities that were perpetrated in the late invafion of Switzerland, and that the most remarkable addition confifts in a congratulatory addrefs to the French people, upon the re-establishment of their religion, and the restoration of peaceful purfuits. The praise and commiferation of the Royal family is retained, without any qualification. The London edition, it may be obferved, contains, in the notes, all the additions that have been made in that of Paris. The plan of the poem, we cannot help thinking, is somewhat fcholaftic and formal. The fubject is Pity-or the active principle of benevolence towards the diftreffed: and, to illuftrate the operations of this principle with the happiest poetical effect, the author has been able to bethink himself of no better plan, than to begin with defcribing the duties that are owing to the misfortunes of horses, dogs, and other domeftic animals: then; by a caurious and gradual afcent, he proceeds to the miseries of flaves and hired fervants; and at last arrives at the diftreffes of fellow-citizens, parents, and friends, with their correfponding fympathies, and appropriate degrees of compaffion. This fcale of misfortune and pity occupies the first canto. The second treats of the Pity of Governments,' and has, for its fubject, the cafe of debtors, convicts, and all manner of fick and unhappy perfons, in public hofpitals, prifons, or garrifons. The two laft cantos are confecrated to the miferies of the Revolution; the third containing a detail of the objects of pity, during the reign of terror, among whom the Royal fufferers hold the moft diftinguished place; and the fourth treating of thofe particular cafes of revolutionary diftrefs, that arose from the confifcation of property, and the expatriation of the individual. In the adjustment of this plan, there is certainly no great artifice of method: the parts do not naturally fuggeft each other, nor are they fo appropriated to their places, as not to be interchanged without obvious difadvantage. This, however, is partly the fault of the fubject: a poem upon pity muft neceffarily confift of a series of pictures and illuftrations; and the author can only be blamed for having selected them injudiciously, or for having fubjected them to a fantastic and unnatural arrangement. The first canto is almoft entirely engaged in the most hopeless common-places of poetry. Upon the fubject of cruelty to animals, the fage of Samos is brought in, with his ufual cortege of lowing oxen, and bleating theep; and the oration which Thomfon imitated from Ovid, is here very elegantly tranflated from Thomson. Thomfon. The iniquity of horfe-racing is expofed in a very long homily, and the abominations of the flave-trade are detailed in the accustomed manner. There is fome magnificent versification in all this; but there are also many paffages, which, to an English ear at least, appear extremely tame and awkward. The fubject of animal mifery is announced, for instance, in these lines, which we really fuppofed at first to relate to the peasantry. Vous donc, foyez d'abord le fujet de mes chants, O vous, qui fécondez, ou qui peuplez nos champs!' p. 5. There is fomething miferably unfuccessful, and almost ridiculous, in the following attempt to give great intereft and energy to a well known anecdote. Tel ne fut point Hogart: fa main compatisfante Traça des animaux l'hiftoire attendriffante. De là, ce noble élan, ces admirables mots • D'une âme généreuse et fenfible à leurs maux, Qui, voyant des courfiers torturés par leur maître, S'écrie: "O cœur barbare, homme dur, qui peut-être "Tu n'as donc jamais vu les peintures d'Hogart ! " P. 9. The transition to the horrors of the flave-trade, is made in this intolerable couplet. • Tairai-je ces enfans de la rive Africaine Qui cultivent pour nous la terre Américaine?' p. 14. One of the most striking inftances of a taste that is certainly foreign, and, we are almoft perfuaded, is alfo falfe, occurs in the beginning of the ftory of Fidelia, which M. de Lille has verfified from one of the papers of the Spectator with great elegance and great exactnefs. Addifon had called his heroine a beautiful young woman, and had faid that she was beloved by a young man of great merit. The French academician thus improves these fimple expreffions: Au cifeau de Scopas, même au pinceau d'Apelle La Beauté que je chante eût fervi de modèle. Un amant l'adoroit, tel que le Dieu d'amour L'eût choisi pour charmer les Nymphes de fa cour. p. 17. In a lamentation over his own blindness, the general idea of which is evidently borrowed from Milton, M. de Lille goes out of his way to make the following unneceffary attack on the political principles of that great man: Je n'eus ni fes talens, ni fa lâche foibleffe: Il outragea fon maître, et j'ai chanté mien. p. 20. We cannot help withing, that among the paffages which are fuppreffed in the edition of Paris, M. de Lille had had the grace VOL. III. NO. 5. с to to expunge this alfo. We do not know with what propriety the appellation of lâche foibleffe' can be applied to the ftern and unbending republicanifm of Milton; but we are perfuaded, that be would not have purchased the protection of his opponents by any weak compliances; and that he would never have fuppreffed or altered any paffage in his immortal poem, merely because it might have given offence to the Royal cenfors of the day. The canto ends with a pleafing, but fomewhat puerile story, of the virtuous Mopfus, whofe cottage was burnt down, and the fenfible Dormond, who fecretly contrived to build him another, fo very like the old one, as to produce an amufing surprise. Ses murs, vieillis par l'art, offrent même coup d'œil; Les rofeaux avec art s'enlacent aux rofeaux ; J'entends tourner la roue et rouler les fufcaux.' p. 27. 28. Thefe lines are certainly beautiful; and the incidents, though fomewhat too ingeniously imagined, must be allowed to be natural, and ftrictly in harmony with the whole design. The Second canto is, on the whole, rather dull. There is nothing fo eafy, and nothing fo tedious, as differtations on the miferies of captivity, war, fickness, and the other corporated plagues of human life. The picture of the prifoner is copied, or rather exactly tranflated, from Cowper's fine sketch of the Bastile: only the ftriking circumftance of his feeking to wear out the tedious time by counting the iron ftuds on his door in all directions, and beginning again when the calculation is completed, is omitted by the French poet, as too whimsical, and too little dignified, for his elaborate couplets. In return, however, he has added to the defcription of the English poet, by informing us, that the vault is the prifoner's fky, and the walls his horizon.' We have reason to be proud, we think, of the difference in the national taste of the two writers. M. de Lille is very poetically angry at the injuftice of those laws that condemn a debtor to imprisonment; and is for allowing maniacs to range among flowers and fountains, instead of shutting them up in folitary dungeons. He is eloquent, moreover, upon the the establishment at Botany bay, and declaims against folitary confinement as a piece of unneceffary cruelty. The highest poetical talents would fcarcely have felected for their theme fuch vulgar prejudices, as must be diffipated by the lowest degree of political information. The prifon fcenes are clofed with a tranflation of Dr Darwin's panegyric upon the celebrated Howard, in which M. de Lille approaches nearer to his original than in any of his other imitations; yet there is fomething decidedly French in this claffical introduction Qu'on ne me vante plus les malheurs vagabonds De ce roi voyageur, père de Télémaque;' p. 34. in the description of dungeons Habités par la mort, et pavés d'offemens;' p. 35. and in the idea of a prifoner finding the embraces of his wife and children a pleafant exchange for his fetters. In the defcription of the hofpitals, there is a great deal of ftrong painting. The following lines, however, have too much of the tone of fatire for the place in which they occur. Là, le long de ces lits, où gémit le malheur, P. 37. In this canto, about 150 verfes, defcriptive of the outrages that were perpetrated by the French armies in their laft invafion of Switzerland, are fuppreffed in the Paris edition; and a part of the defcription is applied to the cafe of civil war in general. Though we by no means approve of the motive which has dictated this retrenchment, we cannot fay that the poem has fuffered any great injury from it. The lines in queftion contained an overloaded and diffufe defcription of burning and butcheryEcho repeating groans, and Pity converted into revenge. There is one couplet we fhould have been forry to lofe, defcribing that inglorious felfishness, Qui, façonnant au joug les peuples abattus, Sans ofer les forfaits, affoupit les vertus.' Of the lines that have been retained and applied to a lefs offenfive fubject, the following are among the most powerful, and afford a good fpecimen of that elaborate and artificial ftyle in which M. de Lille feeks for force in antithefis, and fublimity in exaggeration. De la vierge à genoux leur rage ouvre les flancs, S'irrite fans obitacle, égorge fans colère, Et, s'il n'eit teint de fang, l'or ne fauroit lui plaire. Tout ce qui du pafsé gardoit le fouvenir, Tout ce qui promettoit un bonheur à venir, *C2 Τους Tout ce qui du préfent accroît la jouiffance, Tout fubit leur fureur: s'il offre un trait humain, L'airain trouve un bourreau, le marbre un affaffiu.' p. 47. The canto ends with the war of La Vendée, and an exhortation to peace and reconciliation, which the author puts into the mouth of Pity. The Third canto, which relates entirely to the famous events of the Revolution, treats, of course, of a subject with which every one is already familiar and difgufted. The atrocities of the days of profcription, and the circumstances of horror which accompanied the fate of many eminent individuals, can no longer be read with curiofity, and could fcarcely ever be read with pleasure. They have been founded fo long in the ears of all Europe, that few people can now be found to listen to them; and we doubt if even the charm of M. de Lille's verfification will carry many readers through the uniform and disgusting details with which this part of his poem is charged. We have the delations and the diftruft, and the noyades and the fufilades, and even the civic marriages, (which he calls, very fimply, hymens qu'on abhorre,') and all the terrible etcatera of revolutionary enormities, detailed and defcribed at full length in this canto. We are told, moreover, that Robefpierre and Danton have at gone to terrify the devils with their horrible countenances in hell; and immediately after, the poet comes with a violent complaint against Nature for abetting all thofe crimes; and is very angry with the fire for burning the houfes of the loyalists, and with the earth for being a receiver of their dead bodies. We infert this extraordinary paffage. Taft ; Que dis-je la nature, ô comble de nos maux ! De tous fes élémens feconde nos bourreaux. Dans leurs cachots impurs l'air infecte la vie Le feu dans les hameaux promène l'incendie ; Et la terre complice, en fes avides flancs, Recèle par milliers les cadavres fanglans. p. 63. This may be thought very fine in M. de Lille; but we are certain that it would appear absolutely childish and absurd in any English writer. After going over the melancholy fate of M. de Briffac, Mad. de Lamballe, and fome other victims of lefs note, the author comes to the misfortunes of the Royal family. It is impoffible to read, in any narrative, the hiftory of the outrages and barbarity with which the unfortunate Louis was treated, without feeling compaffion for his fufferings, and indignation towards his perfeBut we are not fure if an inflated rhetorical reprefentaion, fuch as that of M. de Lille, is not, upon the whole, lefs impreffive cutors. |