Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

On the other hand, with what majesty and pomp does Homer exalt his deities!

Far as a shepherd from some point on high O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye, Thro' such a space of air, with thund'ring sound, At one long leap th' immortal coursers bound*.

[ocr errors]

MR. POPE.

He measures the leap of the horses by the extent of the world. And who is there, that considering the superlative magnificence of this thought, would not with good reason cry out, that if the steeds of the deity were to take a second leap the world itself would want room for it.

How

that give us all our pleasure, since we are indebted for no little share of it to the silent night, the distant howling wilderness, the melancholy grot, the dark wood, and hanging precipice. What is terrible, cannot be described too well; what is disagreeable should not be described at all, or at least should be strongly shaded. When Apelles drew the portrait of Antigonus, who had lost an eye, he judiciously took his face in profile, that he might hide the blemish. It is the art of the painter to please, and not to offend the sight. It is the poet's to make us sometimes thoughtful and sedate, but never to raise our distaste by foul and nauseous representations. *Iliad. ɛ. v. 770.

6

It is highly worthy of remark how Longinus seems here inspired with the genius of Homer. He not only approves and admires this divine thought of the poet,

but

How grand also and pompous are those descriptions of the combat of the gods"!

Heav'n

but imitates, I had almost said, improves and raises it. The space which Homer assigns to every leap of the horses, is equal to that which the eye will run over when a spectator is placed upon a lofty eminence, and looks towards the sea, where there is nothing to obstruct the prospect. This is sufficiently great; but Longinus has said what is greater than this, for he bounds not the leap by the reach of the sight, but boldly avers, that the whole extent of the world would not afford room enough for two such leaps.-DR. PEARCE.

* Milton's description of the fight of angels is well able to stand a parallel with the combat of the gods in Homer. His Venus and Mars make a ludicrous sort of appearance, after their defeat by Diomed. The engagement between Juno and Latona has a little of the air of burlesque. His commentators indeed labour heartily in his defence, and discover fine allegories under these sallies of his fancy. This may satisfy them, but is by no means a sufficient excuse for the poet. Homer's excellencies are indeed so many and so great, that they easily incline us to grow fond of those few blemishes which are discernible in his poems, and to contend that he is broad awake, when he is actually nodding, But let us return to Milton, and take notice of the following lines;

-Now storming fury rose

And clamour, such as heard in heav'n, till now,
Was never; arms on armour clashing bray'd
Horrible discord, and the madding wheels
Of brazen chariots rag'd: dire was the noise
Of conflict! over head the dismal hiss

Of

Heav'n in loud thunders bids the trumpet sound, And wide beneath them groans the rending ground*.

Deep in the dismal regions of the dead Th'infernal monarch rear'd his horrid head; Leap'd from his throne, lest Neptane's arm should lay

His dark dominions open to the day,

And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes, Abhorr'd by men, and dreadful ev'n to godst.

MR. POPE.

Of fiery darts in flaming vollies flew,
And flying vaulted either host with fire.
So under fiery cope together rush'd
Both battles main, with ruinous assault
And inextinguishable rage: all Heav'n
Resounded; and had earth been then, all earth
Had to her centre shook.- -་-

The thought of" fiery arches being drawn over the ar"mies by the flight of flaming arrows," may give us some idea of Milton's lively imagination; as the last thought, which is superlatively great, of the reach of his genius: and had earth been then, all earth

Had to her centre shook.

He seems apprehensive, that the mind of his readers was not stocked enough with ideas, to enable them to form a notion of this battle; and to raise it the more, recalls to their remembrance the time, or that part of infinite duration in which it was fought, before time was, when this visible creation existed only in the prescience of God.

* Iliad. . ver. 388.

† Iliad. v. ver. 61.

What

What a prospect is here, my friend! The earth laid open to its centre; Tartarus itself disclosed to view; the whole world in commotion, and tottering on its basis! and what is more, Heaven and Hell, things mortal and immortal, all combating together, and sharing the danger of this important battle. But yet, these bold representations, if not allegorically. understood, are downright blasphemy, and extravagantly shocking. For Homer, in my opinion, when he gives us a detail of the wounds, the seditions, the punishments, imprisonments, tears of the deities, with those evils of every kind under which they languish, has to the utmost of his power exalted his heroes, who fought at Troy, into gods, and degraded his gods into men. Nay, he makes

8

› That magnificent description of the combat of the gods, cannot possibly be expressed or displayed in more concise, more clear, or more sublime terms, than here in Longinus. This is the excellence of a true critic, to be able to discern the excellencies of his author, and to display his own in illustrating them.-DR. PEARCE,

66

9 Plutarch, in his treatise on reading the poets, is of the same opinion with Longinus ; "When you read, says he, in Homer of gods thrown out of heaven by one another, or of gods wounded by, quarrelling with, "and snarling at one another, you may with reason say,

"Here had thy fancy glow'd with usual heat,
"Thy gods had shone more uniformly great."

their condition worse than human; for when man is overwhelmed in misfortunes, death affords a comfortable port, and rescues him from misery. But he represents the infelicity of the gods as everlasting as their nature.

And how far does he excel those descriptions of the combats of the gods, when he sets a deity in his true light, and paints him in all his majesty, grandeur, and perfection; as in that description of Neptune, which has been already applauded by several writers:

10 Fierce as he past, the lofty mountains nod, The forests shake, earth trembled as he trod, And felt the footsteps of th' immortal god. His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep; Th' enormous monsters rolling o'er the deep, Gambol

10 The Deity is described, in a thousand passages of Scripture, in greater majesty, pomp, and perfection than that in which Homer arrays his gods. The books of Psalms and of Job abound in such divine descriptions. That particularly in the xviiith Psalm, ver. 7-10, is inimitably grand:

"Then the earth shook and trembled, the founda"tions also of the hills moved, and were shaken, be"cause he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of "his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals "were kindled at it. He bowed the Heavens also and "came down, and darkness was under his feet. And he "rode upon a cherub, and did fly, and came flying upon "the wings of the wind."

So

« AnteriorContinuar »