No. 74. FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1711. · Pendent opera interrupta · VIRG. EN. iv. 88. The works unfinished and neglected lie. In my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of Chevy-Chase; I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets: for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the Æneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the poet, whoever he was, proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature. Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must however beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgement which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers sonorous; at least, the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will see in several of the following quotations. What can be greater than either the thought or the expression in that stanza, To drive the deer with hound and horn Earl Percy took his way! The child may rue that is unborn This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles which took their rise from this quarrel of the two earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets. Audiet pugnas vitio parentum HOR. OD. i. 2. 23. Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes, Shall read, with grief, the story of their times. What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas ? The stout Earl of Northumberland A vow to God did make, His pleasure in the Scottish woods With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum : VIRG. GEORG. iii. 43. Citharon loudly calls me to my way: Thy hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue their prey: Famed for his hills, and for his horses' breed : Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, All men of pleasant Tividale, Fast by the river Tweed, &c. DRYDEN. The country of the Scotch warrior, described in these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil: Adversi campo apparent: hastasque reductis EN. xi. 605. vii. 682, 712. Advancing in a line, they couch their spears- With those who plough Saturnia's Gabine land: The rocks of Hernicus-besides a band, But to proceed: Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, Rode foremost of the company, DRYDEN. Turnus, ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, &c. Aureus Our English archers bent their bows, At the first flight of arrows sent, With that there came an arrow keen Out of an English bow, N. ix. 47. 269. Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart, A deep and deadly blow. Eneas was wounded after the same manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley. Has inter voces, media inter talia verba, EN. Xii. 318. Thus, while he spake, unmindful of defence, DRYDEN. there are But of all the descriptive parts of this song, So thus did both these nobles die, He had a bow bent in his hand, Against Sir Hugh Montgomery This fight did last from break of day For when they rung the ev'ning bell The battle scarce was done. One may observe, likewise, that in the catalogue of the slain, the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient poets, not only in giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons. And with Earl Douglas there was slain Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too, Sir David Lamb so well esteem'd, Yet saved could not be. The familiar sound in these names destroys the ma |