In solemn silence, a majestick band, Heroes, and gods, and Roman consuls stand, While the bright dames, to whom they humble su’d, Still show the charms that their proud hearts subdu’d. Fain wou'd I Raphael's godlike art rehearse, And shew th' immortal labours in my verse, Such heav'nly figures from his pencil flow, So warm with life his blended colours glow. Here pleasing airs my ravisht soul confound How has kind heav'n adorn'd the happy land, less acts of the old Romans being displayed-a line doubly obscure, and therefore doubly faulty. If the latter fault may be excused, the former cannot for when a plural noun is used, in what is called the genitive case, it requires to be preceded by its sign, the preposition of: above all, when the termination (as is generally the case of our plural nouns) is in s. The poor inhabitant beholds in vain1 The red'ning orange and the swelling grain: Oh Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright, 'Tis liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile 1 The poor inhabitant, &c. These three couplets are among the most vigorous lines Addison ever wrote. Si sic omnia-he would have stood as high in verse as he does in prose. It is almost too minute a criticism, perhaps, to say that 'red'ning' is not the proper epithet for the orange, even while it is growing.-G. Others with towering piles may please the sight,' A nicer touch to the stretch'd canvass give, Fir'd with the name, which I so oft have found That longs to launch into a bolder strain. 1 Others with towering piles, &c. Virgil, whose magnificent description of Italy in the second Georgic, seems to have been running in Addison's head while he was writing several passages of this poem, is very successfully imitated in these lines. Compare the well-known verses of the sixth Æneid, v. 847: Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera, &c.-G. I bridle in my struggling muse, &c. Of this Johnson says, "To bridle a goddess is no very delicate idea; but why must she be bridled? because she longs to launch! an act which was never hindered by a bridle; and whither will she launch? into a nobler strain. She is in the first line a horse, in the second a boat; and the care of the poet is to keep his horse or his boat from singing." Blair takes nearly the same view. "It is surprising how the following inaccuracy should have escaped Mr. Addison in his letter from Italy-'I bridle, &c.' The muse, figured as a horse, may be But I've already troubled you too long, And lines like Virgil's, or like yours, shou'd praise. bridled; but when we speak of launching, we make it a ship; and by no force of imagination can it be supposed both a horse and a ship at one mobridled to hinder it from launching."-G. ment; 1 My humble verse. Sed ne relictis, musa procax, jocis, &c. To one who travelled with the Latin poets for his guide books, it is more than probable that the closing stanza of the first ode of Horace's 2d book suggested this graceful close.-G. VOL. I.-E Esse aliquam in terris gentem quæ suâ impensâ, suo labore ac periculo bella gerat pro libertate aliorum. Nec hoc finitimis, aut propinquæ vincinitatis hominibus, aut terris continenti junctis præstet. Maria trajiciat: ne quod toto orbe terrarum injustum imperium sit, et ubique jus, fas, lex, potentissima sint. LIV. HIST. lib. 33. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. [THE best authorities very nearly agree in the following account of the origin of this poem:-"The victory at Blenheim" (1704), says Johnson, "spread triumph and confidence over the nation; and Lord Godolphin lamenting to Lord Halifax, that it had not been celebrated in a manner equal to the subject, desired him to propose it to some better poet. Halifax told him that there was no encouragement for genius; that worthless men were unprofitably enriched with public money, without any care to find or employ those whose appearance might do honor to their country. To this Godolphin replied, that such abuses should in time be rectified: and that if a man could be found, capable of the task then proposed, he should not want an ample recompense. Halifax then named Addison, but required that the treasurer should apply to him in his own person. Godolphin sent the message by Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton; and Addison having undertaken the work, communicated it to the treasurer, while it was yet advanced no farther than the simile of the angel, and was immediately rewarded by succeeding Mr. Locke in the place of Commissioner of Appeals." |