So happily flexile man's make, So pliantly docile his mind, Surrounding impressions we take, And bliss in each circumstance find. The youths of a more polish'd age Shall not wish these rude commons to see; To the bird that's enur'd to the cage, It would not be bliss to be free. There is a sweet and tender melancholy pervades the elegiac ballad efforts of Mr. Bloomfield, which bas the most indescribable effccts on the heart. Were the versification a little more polished, in some instances, they would be read with unmixt delight. It is to be hoped that he will cultivate this engaging species of composition, and (if I may venture to throw out the hint) if judgment may be formed from the poems he has published, he would excel in sacred poetry. Most heartily do I recommend the lyre of David to this engaging bard. Divine topics have seldom been touched upon with success, by our modern Muses: they afford a field in which he would have few competitors, and it is a field worthy of his abilities. W. SKETCH OF AN HISTORICAL EULOGIUM ON The Marshal Duke of Berwick. FROM MONTESQUIEU'S POSTHUMOUS WORKS. (Concluded from page 228.) GREAT REAT men are more subjected than others to a rigorous examination of their conduct: every one likes to call them before his little tribunal. Did not the Roman soldiers make use of bitter railleries about the chariot of victory? They thought thus to triumph over even the triumpher himself. But it is fortunate for Marshal de Berwick that the two objections made to him are only founded on his attachment to his duties. The objection that he was not in the expedition to Scotland in 1715, has, for its foundation, that people wish to regard him as one who had no country, and are unwilling to consider that he was a Frenchman. Having become French with the consent of his first masters, he obeyed the orders of Louis XIV. and afterwards those of the French regent. He was obliged to silence the suggestions of his heart, and pursue great principles; he saw that he was no longer at his own option; he saw that he was no longer to determine according to that which was most proper, but to that which was most necessary; he knew that he should be judged, and unjust judgments he despised; neither popular clamours, nor the manner in which those may think who think but little, were capable of influencing his determination. The ancients, who treated of duties, did not find the great difficulty in knowing them, but in choosing between two. He followed that duty which was strongest, as his destiny. These are subjects on which no one treats, unless when obliged to do it. Let us examine the question narrowly, and see whether that prince, even if restored, would have a right to recal him. The strongest thing that can be said upon that is, that our country never abandons us: but even that was not the case, for he was proscribed by his country when he got himself naturalised in France. Grotius, Puffendorff, all the voices by which Europe has spoken, decided the question, and declared to him that he was a Frenchman, and subject to the laws QQ-VOL. XVI. of France, which at that time made peace the basis of its political system. What a contradiction then, if a peer of the kingdom, a marshal of France, a governor of a province, had disobeyed the prohibition to quit the kingdom-that is to say, had been really guilty of disobedience, in order to appear, in the eyes of the English alone, as if he had not disobeyed. In fact Marshal Berwick was, even from his very dignities, in peculiar circumstances, and a distinction could hardly be made between his appearance in Scotland, and a declaration of war against England. France thought that it was not for its interest to provoke that war which would have embroiled all Europe. How could he take upon him the immense weight of such a conduct? It may even be asked, if he consulted ambition, what greater object could he have than the restoration of the house of Stuart to the throne of England. How dearly he loved his children is well known. What delight then must it afford to his heart if he could have foreseen a third establishment in England! Had he been even consulted respecting the enterprise, under the circumstances of the time, he would not have approved of it: he thought such enterprises to be of the same nature as all others, which should be regulated by prudence; and that an enterprise, if unsuccessful, has two bad consequences, the present misfortune, and much greater difficulty in attempting success at some future period. OLLA PODRIDA. No. VI. ON LITERARY RESEMBLANCES. IT secms a peculiar province of modern criticism, to indulge in a pleasing, but oftentimes unnecessary observance of similar passages in different poets. To the generality of readers, this sort of penetration is totally disagreeable; and the learned critic, after having been at the extraordinary pains of searching for a correspondent idea, to parallel the one which first excited his attention, has often the mortification of being the only reader of his own sagacity. It must, however, be allowed, that to remark congenial sentiments and observations, is, for the most part, an amusing task: but (as I have premised) this pleasing amusement, being generally personal, those who would wish, in their critical remarks upon an illustrious author, to denote those similar passages, ought to confine themselves within certain rules. First, He ought to consider whether there is an actual similitude. Secondly, Whether such similitude is worthy of remark. Thirdly, Whether it be accidental or designed. The first and second are the most important to the reader, the third to the author. To fill the page with pretended likenesses, is worse than substituting the portraiture of Othello, in lieu of Shakespeare, in an elegant edition of his works. For instance, can any one trace the following admired passage in Milton, to the succeeding quotation from the Georgics:- O thou that with surpassing glory crown'd, Look'st from thy sole dominion like the God Vos, ô clarissima mundi Lumina, labentem cœlo quæ ducitis annum, In L'Allegro is used "Cimmerian darkness." This expression has been proverbial from the age of Homer to that of Ovid, and from Ovid to this day: why then encumber the text, with deducing the same words from Sylvester's Du Bartas to Milton, and we might add from Milton to Young. The third, whether the resemblance is accidental or designed, is important to the reputation of the poet, and therefore the critic ought to pause before he determines upon it. This is frequently difficult of decision, as similar situations will call forth similar thoughts; but when the case is absolutely certain, and the poet desires to assume honours to which he is not entitled, this department of criticism forms a court of judicature, from which he can never hope to appeal. To this charge Sterne must inevitably prove guilty, and his appropriation of a passage on literary thievery is so serious, that no jury can acquit him. If a disagreeable sensation attend the conviction of guilt, there is a pleasure of the highest kind in observing passages, beautiful in themselves, decorate also the pages of poets, who are not only igno rant of such similarity, but destitute of the means of knowing it ; of this nature are those enchanting lines in Bloomfield's Farmer's Boy. Ah! fallen rose! sad emblem of their doom, * Vide G. Wakefield's note to this passage, in his edition of Virgil. This beautiful thought, as remarked by that accomplished critic, Mr. Lofft, is from Ausonius. Quam longa una dies ætas tam longa rosarum, Quas pubescentes juncta senecta premit. Particular sentiments, in different authors, are agreeable, as where some author justly says, Man differs more from man, than man from beast. We remember the same idea in Plutarch :-- "There is not so great a difference between one beast and another, as between man and man." Chapter on Equality. Again when Horace says, Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt, we call to mind a passage in the oration of Julian to Sallust :-- “When man travels from place to place, they do not change their dispositions, or deviate from the right principles they had previously imbibed.” When a poet indulges in speaking of himself, and a similarity of occasional propensities or manners is remarked, it behoves the critic to observe them; for instance, when Milton informs us, in b. 9. l. 22, that his Muse "Dictates to him slumbering," without bringing a passage in Pope's prologues to Satires, 142, he barely remarks, that Cædenon, a Saxon poet, was so familiar with poetry, that he used to make verses in his sleep, and repeat them when awaket. Again, in private opinions of self worth, thus 'with P. 2, b. 1, 1. 14, compare the 921st line of the first book of Lucretius. Also similies, compare the exquisite one in P. 2, b. 1, l. 768, with Virgil, b. 7, l. 434. Of inventions, as where the idea of the origin of artillery is borrowed from Spenser, l. 1, canto 7, st. 13. These incidental observations may be reduced to the remark, that the critic, in literary resemblances, ought to have an impartial eye to truth, a contempt for frivolous observation, but, at the same time, a nind, which, in observing a coincidence of ideas, can separate "similitude from imitation, and imitation from plagiarism." MORTIMER. *M.'s edition of Ausonius is incomplete, and contains not the eleventh or fourteenth idyls. It would, perhaps, be too intrusive on the politeness of this gentleman, to request hm to insert a translation of the fourteenth idyl in the Monthly Mirror. + Beda's Eccl. Ilist. p. 397. |