inclined rather to distrust our judgment; and instead of running wild upon an hypothesis, however novel and ingenious, it would rather become us to submit to the severest scrutiny of calm and dispassionate research.

We trust that Mr. Thruston will not be discouraged in the prosecution of his labours; he has both piety and genius, but he has yet to learn precision in statement, accuracy in deduc tion, and sobriety in reasoning. There is much intricacy to unravel, and many excrescences to reduce. Would he be a suc cessful commentator upon Holy Writ, he must rein in his imagination, and ever apply to himself the advice represented to have been given to him who would direct the horses of the Sun,

Parce puer stimulis, et fortius utere loris.

ART. VI. Charlemagne. An Epic Poem. By Lucien Buonaparte. Translated by the Rev. S. Butler, D.D. and the Rev. F. Hodgson, A.M. 2 Vols. 4to. Longman, and Co.

1815.

HAVING considered the history, the machinery, and the struc ture of this extraordinary Poem so much at length in our last number, we shall now proceed to view it divested of its original garb, and presented to us under the form of an English translation. The gentlemen who have undertaken this task, stand deservedly high in the estimation of the literary world: Dr. Butler, the editor of Eschylus, as a powerful and distinguished scholar, and Mr. Hodgson, the translator of Juvenal, as a classical and an animated poet. We consider Lucien peculiarly fortunate in being enabled to submit his Poem to the hands of such translators, who cannot fail to add lustre, even where they found it not, and to attract the attention of the public to a Poem, which would otherwise have had very little interest in the eyes of the English reader.

The first six Cantos were placed by Dr. Butler in the hands of the Rev. John Maunde, by whom it was originally intended that the whole work should have been translated; before however he had completed even these, he fell a victim to a linge ing and a hopeless disease. He died, leaving them incomplete: Dr. Butler however from the imperfect state of Mr. Maunde's translation, and the perpetual alterations made by the author in the original Poem, was forced to undertake the laborious task of

F

new

VOL. IV. JULY, 1815.

new casting nearly the whole of the six Cantos, so that not a twentieth part of Mr. Maunde's composition remains. In addition to these Dr. Butler took the 7th, 8th, 15th, 16th, 18th, and 19th, as his moiety of the work; the remainder was en trusted to Mr. Hodgson.

We shall now proceed to give a general outline of the events and the conduct of the Poem, as it appears in the English garb, selecting such parts as will in our opinion reflect the greatest credit upon the translators. We shall not repeat the criticisms upon its structure, which we gave in our last number, but shall leave it to our readers to apply them, as we advance in our outline of the history and the details.

The Poem opens with the union of the Lombards with Didier their king, and the Iconoclast Greeks under the walls of Spoleto. Longin the Ambassador of Constantine Porphyrogenetes assures the Lombard monarch of his master's zeal in their cause, while Rodmir, the disappointed lover of Armelia, now wedded to Charlemagne, urges the immediate advance of the allied host to the very gates of Rome. While the crafty Didier pauses, the bands of Longin take Spoleto by storm, and murders its venerable prelate at the foot of the altar, while he defends the image of his Saviour. The Latins are warned by a voice from heaven to betake themselves and not their wives and children, but their images to Rome. This introduces a description of the Church of St. Peter, and the sacred tapestries, with the ceremony of pouring ashes on the Pontiff's head. We are next transported to Paradise, where the Virgin Mary offers a prayer to the Almighty for the success of the Church against the Lombards.

LXXI.

"In idle songs Apollo's sons have praised

The Gods fantastic, which their hands have raised:
Have traced the sable brow, beneath whose nod

The poles are shaken: but Jehovah, God,

To saints alone his face divine displays,
Too dazzling bright for man's enfeebled gaze.
What do I say? a fire celestial cheers
My renovated voice, and God appears!
God even to me descending from his might,
Beneath a mortal symbol strikes my sight!

LXXII.

Type of the Trinity, and God alone,

Sudden a flaming triangle is shown,

Which, glittering like the star, whose piercing light
Breaks through the blackness of the gloomy night,
Rests on a cloud of gold! before its fires,
All pallid grown, the beam of Heaven retires : !

In one sole essence joined, and yet apart,
Three rays united their effulgence dart

From that bright triangle: the heavenly blaze,
Reflected, round the Virgin-mother plays:
Inspired with sacred love, with dazzled eye,
In silence deep the prostrate angels lie.

LXXIII.

"The Godhead speaks; and Heaven's remotest bound
Hath heard his voice, and vibrates to the sound:

66 AGAINST THE CHURCH, WEAK MAN SHALL NEE'R PREVAIL,
"AGAINST THE CHURCH THE Gates of HELL SHALL FAIL.”
His voice the sadness of the sky dispels,

And wide in Heaven the hymn of triumph swells.
Hope animates the pontiff's breast anew,
He rises, and the astonished people view
Celestial fires in dazzling lustre gleam

Shot from his triple crown, with triple beam." Vol. I. P. 38.

The second Canto introduces us to Paris, and the field of May: Egbert the future monarch of England, Alphonso of Asturia, and Monclar of Narbonne receive their knighthood from Charlemagne. Roland (the Orlando of Ariosto) in his phrenzy, pours out an invective against the king for having forsaken Adelinda his former wife, and having taken Armelia the daughter of Didier to his arms. Though restrained from further violence by his friend Oliver, his accents penetrate the conscience of the guilty monarch.

The third Canto comes in again to Heaven, and opens with the hymn of the Blessed to the Virgin. The twelve disciples now pass before our view, and Peter unfolds to the heavenly hosts the events which are to take place in the present struggle. Elias is dispatched to Mount Cassin, a famous monastery in the kingdom of Naples, to whose cloisters several princes of the seventh and eighth centuries retired.

XIX.

"Hail, regal cloisters! hail, retired abode !
Where empty grandeur drops its weary load:
Ye marbles, bail! where earthly kings were known
With frequent knee to press the sacred stone:
The stormy gusts that rend the human breast,
At sight of you are hushed to peaceful rest:
The weak, the mighty, in his hallowed seat,
A refuge sure, an equal welcome meet:
Here Drogon, Carloman, from care repose,
And Rachis' age in tranquil tenor flows:
Within your walls, with eye impartial seen,

Monarchs by you are levelled with the mean." Vol. I. P. 80.

This and the following stanza do credit to the pen of Dr.

Butler.

XXXIII.

"Now o'er the world as spread the veil of night,
Lost were the beetling Apennines to sight;
The bell had sounded forth the hour of sleep,
And all the cloister lay in silence deep :
No foot the temple trod: a glimmering flame,
That through the ambient darkness feebly came,
Shot through the dusky aisles its quivering ray,
Where shrouded bones of many a martyr lay:
The golden lamp, with solitary gleam,

Still through the shade prolonged its dying beam." Vol.I.P.87. Elias now appears to Adeland the abbot of the convent, who is commanded to repair to Charlemagne for the purpose of recalling him to his duty, and the recluse is wafted through the air, to the tomb of Martel and Pepin in a sacred isle, formed by two arms of the Seine. At the beginning of the fourth Canto we find the monarch

V.

"Weighed down by pensive melancholy's force,
A mingled thought of love and of remorse
Draws him, unconscious, to the dismal shade,
Where, in their tombs, his princely sires are laid
Reckless he trod the lonely fields: his breast,
In bursting sighs, his restless pain confessed:
The stings of sorrow, edged with bitterest smart,
Struck through his anguished soul their keenest dart,
Some secret power his wandering footsteps led
To the lone mansions of the mighty dead."

Vol. I. P. 97.

The abbot succeeds in his heavenly mission, and recalls the monarch to a sense of his duty towards the Church. As he retires from the sacred island, he is arrested by the sounds of a fray arising between Eginhand, who had alone met the recreant knights urged by Armelia to destroy Roland. Gannelon their leader falls by his hands, and in his dying speech confesses to Charlemagne, that by his artifices he had been estranged from Adelinda, and had been induced to wed Armelia. As he returns he is met by Emma, his daughter by Adelinda, who by her beauty and resemblance to her mother, in a still stronger degree confirms his resolution.

Armelia now exerts all her influence over Charles, to induce him to relinquish his intention of recalling Adelinda to his arms, but in vain Charles continues fixed in his determination; and Armelia by night flies from the walls of Paris. The cloister of Adeliuda is next presented to our view, from whence she is led amidst the shout of universal applause, to the palace of her

former

former lord. In the sixth Canto, Tardetz is delivered by Rolando; the Moors fly in consternation and dismay: but the unhappy warrior is overwhelmed in the pass of Roncesvalles, by the treason of Theodebert the duke of Gascony. This tragical event has formed the argument of more poems than one; in our language it has given birth to a very beautiful and classical production entitled "Orlando in Roncesvalles, by Mr. Merivale, with a sketch of which we presented our readers a few months since. The episode is here introduced with much success; it is not too long, but aptly coincides with the style and the events of the poem. The following stanza is worthy of record.

XXIX.

Ye hapless warriors, thus to death consigned,
Would that your glories, in my song enshrined,
Might live, that ages yet unborn might crown,
With homage ever new, your high renown:
Full well ye proved, that honour's brightest flame
Warmed your brave souls to deeds of noblest fame.
While they, your recreant foes, in dark disguise
Shrouded their murderous treasons from your eyes:
O let my verse produce to light again

Your deeds, that long in time's abyss have lain !" Vol. I. P. 161.

In the seventh Canto we are conducted into the presence of Didier, king of the Lombards, who glows with resentment at the disgrace and abandonment of his daughter by Charlemagne. His peers assemble, and by the advice of the crafty Longin they resolve to march to Rome, to avenge themselves on the Pontiff, who is considered as the author of the divorce. Near the frontiers of Italy, Rodmir meets with Armelia in her flight, she throws herself into his arms, he swearing never to rest, till he has laid the head of Charlemagne at her feet. We are now transported to Rome, whose inhabitants are busy in defending the city against the attack threatened by the united armies of Didier and Ezelin the duke of Salernum, who had married a younger sister of Armelia. In the the eight Canto, Charles leads his army towards the frontiers of Italy. In this place is introduced, according to the establighed usage of the the epic, the catalogue of the Paladins, which is neither wanting in variety or spirit. The army ascend the Alps, they meet the hermit of Mount Jove, who relates to Charles the cruelties of Ezelin, and the death of Adelard, whose murder the monarch vows to avenge. The passage of the Alps is forced, and Charles pursues the enemy who guarded it along the plains beneath.

In the ninth Cauto Dr. Butler resigns the wand of translation to Mr. Hodgson, and though highly satisfied with our former conductor, we nevertheless feel no ordinary pleasure in sub.

miing