ply turned into verse, they would not become poems; because they would be destitute of those figures, embellishments, and flights of imagination, which display the poet's art and invention. On the other hand, we have many productions that justly lay claim to the title of poetry, without having the advantage of versification; witness the Psalms of David, the Song of Solomon, with many beautiful hymns, descriptions, and rhapsodies, to be found in different parts of the Old Testament, some of them the immediate production of divine inspiration; witness the Celtic fragments which have lately appeared in the English language, and are certainly replete with poetical merit. But though good versification alone will not constitute poetry, bad versification alone will certainly degrade and render disgustful the sublimest sentiments and finest flowers of imagination. This humiliating power of bad verse appears in many translations of the ancient poets; in Ogilby's Homer, Trapp's Virgil, and frequently in Creech's Horace. This last indeed is not wholly devoid of spirit; but it seldom rises above mediocrity, and, as Horace says, Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non Dî, non concessere columnæ. But God and man, and letter'd post denies, How is that beautiful ode, beginning with Justum et tenacem propositi virum, chilled and tamed by the following translation : Nor to a haughty tyrant's frown will stoop, Nor to a raging storm, when all the winds are up. Should nature with convulsions shake, Struck with the fiery bolts of Jove, Cannot his constant courage move. That long Alexandrine—« Nor to a raging storm, when all the winds are up," is drawling, feeble, swoln with a pleonasm or tautology, as well as deficient in the rhyme; and as for the « dreadful crack,» in the next stanza, instead of exciting terror, it conveys a low and ludicrous idea. How much more elegant and energetic is this paraphrase of the same ode, inserted in one of the volumes of Hume's History of England. Nor the proud tyrant's fiercest threat, Nor Jove's dread bolt, that shakes the pole, The firmer purpose of his soul With all its power can shake. If poetry exists independent of versification, it will naturally be asked, how then is it to be distinguished ? Undoubtedly by its own peculiar expression; it has a language of its own, which speaks so feelingly to the heart, and so pleasingly to the imagination, that its meaning cannot possibly be misunderstood by any person of delicate sensations. It is a species of painting with words, in which the figures are happily conceived, ingeniously arranged, affectingly expressed, and recommended with all the warmth and harmony of colouring: it consists of imagery, description, metaphors, similes, and sentiments, adapted with propriety to the subject, so contrived and executed as to soothe the ear, surprise and delight the fancy, mend and melt the heart, elevate the mind, and please the understanding. According to Flaccus : Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poetæ ; Poets would profit or delight mankind, Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci, Profit and pleasure mingled thus with art, Tropes and figures are likewise liberally used in rhetoric and some of the most celebrated orators have owned themselves much indebted to the poets. Theophrastus expressly recommends the poets for this purpose. From their source, the spirit and energy of the pathetic, the sublime, and the beautiful, are derived.' But these figures must be more sparingly used in rhetoric than in poetry, and even then mingled with argumentation, and a detail of facts altogether different from poetical narration. The poet, instead of simply relating the incident, strikes off a glowing picture of the scene, and exhibits it in the most lively colours to the eye of the imagination. << It is reported that Homer was blind,» says Tully in his Tusculan Questions, «< yet his poetry is no other than painting. What country, what climate, what ideas, battles, commotions, and contests of men, as well as of wild beasts, has he not painted in such a manner as to bring before our eyes those very scenes, which he himself could not behold!»2 We cannot therefore subscribe to the opinion of some ingenious critics, who have blamed Mr Pope for deviating in some instances from the simplicity of Homer, in his translation of the Iliad and Odyssey. For example, the Grecian bard says simply, the sun rose; and his translator gives us a beautiful picture of the sun rising. Homer mentions a person who played upon the lyre; the translator sets him before us warbling to the silver strings. If this be a deviation, it is at the same time an improvement. Homer himself, as Cicero observes above, is full of this kind of painting, and particularly fond of description, even in situations where the action seems to require haste. Neptune, observing from Samothrace the discomfiture of the Gre Namque ab his (scilicet poetis) et in rebus spiritus, et in verbis sublimitas, et in affectibus motus omnis, et in personis decor petitur.QUINTILIAN, 1. x. 2 Quæ regio, quæ ora, quæ species formæ, quæ pugna, qui motus hominum, qui ferarum, non ita expictus est, ut quæ ipse non viderit, nos ut videramus, effecerit ! cians before Troy, flies to their assistance, and might have been wafted thither in half a line: but the bard describes him, first, descending the mountain on which he sat; secondly, striding towards his palace at Ægæ, and yoking his horses; thirdly, he describes him putting on his armour; and lastly, ascending his car, and driving along the surface of the sea. Far from being disgusted by these delays, we are delighted with the particulars of the description. Nothing can be more sublime than the circumstance of the mountain's trembling beneath the footsteps of an immortal : Τρέμε δ' οὐρέα μακρὰ καὶ ὕλη Ποσσὶν ὑπ ̓ ἀθανάτοισι Ποσειδάωνος ἴοντος. But his passage to the Grecian fleet is altogether transporting. Βῆδ ̓ ἐλάαν ἐπὶ κύματ, etc. He mounts the car, the golden scourge applies, His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep: With great veneration for the memory of Mr Pope, we cannot help objecting to some lines of this translation. We have no idea of the sea's exulting and crowning Neptune, after it had subsided into a level plain. There is no such image in the original. Homer says, the whales |