Or meets his spouse's fonder eye; What tender paffions take their turns, His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns, CHORU S. Hence guilty joys, diftaftes, furmises, Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine: NOTES. 36 40 VER. 31. Or meets] Recalling to our minds that pathetic stroke in Lucretius; " dulces occurrunt ofcula nati Præripere, & tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangunt." VER. 42.] Not to the purpofe; long leifure. Lib. iii. 909. a These two Chorus's are enough to fhew us his great talents for this fpecies of Poetry, and to make us lament he did not prosecute his purpose in executing fome plans he had chalked out ; but the Character of the Managers of Playhouses at that time, was what (he faid) foon determined him to lay afide all thoughts of that nature. Nor did his morals, lefs than the just sense of his own importance, deter him from having any thing to do with the Theatre. He remembered that an ancient Author hath acquainted us with this extraordinary circumftance; that, in the conftruction of Pompey's magnificent Theatre, the feats of it were fo contrived, as to ferve, at the fame time, for fteps to a temple VOL. I. M temple of Venus, which he had joined to his Theatre. The moral Poet could not but be ftruck with a story where the λóyos and the μlos of it ran as imperceptibly into one another, as the Theatre and the Temple. W. How lamentable is it, that a writer of great talents, fhould mifemploy them in ftriving to difcover new meanings, and analogies, in things not alike, and not founded on plain truth and reafon! Thus, the Vine in Lycidas is called gadding, because, though married to the Elm, like bad wives fhe goes abroad. Thus, in Shakespear, the flower called Love-in-idlenefs intimates that this paffion has its chief power when people are idle. Thus, in Macbeth, fcreams of death and prophefying, fhould be read, Aunts, prophefying, old women. And thus, in Midfummer Night's Dream, inftead of Cupid all-arm'd, read Cupid alarm'd; that is, alarmed at the chastity of Lady Elizabeth, which leffened his power. H ODE ON SOLITUDE'. APPY the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air, In his own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Bleft, who can unconcern'dly find Quiet by day, Sound fleep by night; ftudy and ease, Thus let me live, unfeen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie. a This was a very early production of our Author, written at about twelve years old. M 2 P. Scaliger, Scaliger, Voltaire, and Grotius, were but eighteen years old when they produced, the two first their Œdipuses, and the last his Adamus Exul. But the most extraordinary inftance of early excellence is The Old Batchelor of Congreve, written at nineteen only; as comedy implies and requires a knowledge of life and characters, which are here displayed with accuracy and truth. Mr. Spence informed me that Pope once faid to him, "I wrote things, I am ashamed to fay how foon; part of my epic poem Alcander when about twelve. The fcene of it lay in Rhodes, and some of the neighbouring islands; and the poem opened under the water, with a defcription of the court of Neptune; that couplet on the circulation of the blood, which I afterwards inferted in the Dunciad, As man's mæanders, to the vital spring Roll all their tides, then back their circles bring, was originally in this poem, word for word." After he had burnt this very early compofition, Atterbury told him, he much wished fome parts of it, as a fpecimen, had been more carefully preserved. Quintilian, whofe knowledge of human nature was confummate, has obferved, that nothing quite correct and faultlefs is to be expected in very early years, from a truly elevated genius: that a generous extravagance and exuberance are its proper marks, and that a premature exactness is a certain evidence of future flatnefs and fterility. His words are incomparable, and worthy confideration. "Audeat hæc ætas plura, et inveniat, et inventis gaudeat, fint licet illa non fatis interim ficca et fevera. Facile remedium est ubertatis, fterilia nullo labore vincuntur. Illa mihi in pueris natura nimium fpei dabit, in quâ ingenium judicio præfumitur.-Materiam effe primum volo vel abundantiorem, atque ultra quam oportet fufam. Multum inde decoquant anni, multum ratio limabit, aliquid velut ufu ipfo deteretur, fit modo unde excidi poffit & quod exculpi :-erit autem, fi non ab initio tenuem laminam duxerimus, et quam cælatura altior rumpat.Quare mihi ne maturitas quidem ipfa feftinet, nec mufta in lacu ftatim auftera fint; fic et annos ferent, et vetuftate proficient." This is very ftrong and masculine fense, expressed and enlivened by a train of metaphors, all of them elegant, and well preserved. Whether thefe early productions of Pope, would not have appeared to to Quintilian to be rather too finished, correct, and pure, and what he would have inferred concerning them, is too delicate a subject for me to enlarge upon. Let me rather add an entertaining anecdote. When Guido and Dominichino had each of them painted a picture in the church of Saint Andrew, Annibal Carrache, their master, was preffed to declare which of his two pupils had excelled. The picture of Guido reprefented Saint Andrew on his knees before the cross; that of Dominichino represented the flagellation of the fame Apoftle. Both of them in their different kinds were capital pieces, and were painted in fresco, opposite each other, to eternize, as it were, their rivalship and contention. "Guido (faid Carrache) has performed as a master, and Dominichino as a scholar. But (added he) the work of the scholar is more valuable than that of the mafter. In truth, one may perceive faults in the picture of Dominichino that Guido has avoided, but then there are noble strokes, not to be found in that of his rival." It was eafy to discern a genius that promised to produce beauties, to which the sweet, the gentle, and the graceful Guido would never aspire. The first sketches of fuch an artist ought highly to be prized. Different geniuses unfold themselves at different periods of life. In fome minds the one is a long time in ripening. Not only inclination, but opportunity and encouragement, a proper fubject, or a proper patron, influence the exertion or the fuppreffion of genius. These stanzas on Solitude are a strong instance of that contemplation and moral turn, which was the distinguishing characteristic of our Poet's mind. An ode of Cowley, which he produced at the age of thirteen years, is of the fame cast, and perhaps not in the least inferior to this of Pope. The voluminous Lopez de Vega is commonly, but perhaps incredibly, reported by the Spaniards to have compofed verses when he was five years old; and Torquato Taffo, the fecond or third of the Italian poets, for that wonderful original Dante is the firft, is faid to have recited poems and orations of his own writing, when he was feven. It is however certain, which is more extraordinary, that he produced his Rinaldo in his eighteenth year, no bad precurfor to the Gerufalemma Liberata, and no small effort of that genius, which was in due time to fhew, how fine an epic poem the Italian language, notwithstanding the vulgar imputation of effeminacy, was capable of fupporting. |