Mà dubbio era l'evento, Che pien d'alto ardimento Ofava il difenfor fin fovra'l vallo Salir più volte a provocar il Gallo. Quando d'aurei monili L'armati fchiere de Guerrier nemici Ben tofto avida fatta, i tetti amici Per la ciec' ombra infida Il cauto re, dove per ftrade afcofte Già d'orror, di fingulti, Di gemite, e di gridi Efefo è piena, Fanno a tetti dorati, e per l'arena Amorofe bellezze, Preziose ricchezze, Sono Gallici acquisti: In fi brev'ora Sol con pupille afciutte Staffi colei, de la città mirando Sovr❜ Sovr' il capo efecrable, e nefando Ne la mercè promeffa Trova il gaftigo: e, fra le gemme avolta, I fhall conclude with the following fine fpeci men of another Ode, Al Signor D, Virginia Cefarini. Rimanetevi in pace Cittadine grandezze; Io qui defio Chiuder i giorni miei tra l'erbe, e i fiori. Non habbia il mio morir, ne'l cener mio Spargan di latte, ove tra canti, e giochi, De la ruftica Pale ardono fuochi. Da Numidica balza Urna fuperba à fabbricar' intento Ifpida quercia i duri rami al vento, Ninfa pietofa à quella parte il piede, You You will excufe my dwelling fo long on the merits of a writer, whofe worth (and it is great!) is almost unknown in this country. Certainly if the reverence of Italy fecures the first place among her lyric poets to Petrarch, the second is due to Testi: but if just criticism were confulted in the affair, I fufpect she would divide the throne between them, and place the rest at their footstool. Every reader I believe muft confefs that there are in the above extracts the grandeur and opulence of Pindar, the neatness, beauty, and elegance of Anacreon, mingled with the pathos which the ancients. afcribe to Simonides. Perhaps in another century the Italians will begin to fee and admire his merit; tho what cloud fhould obfcure his fplendor from them, I cannot guefs. Yet fome reafon there must be for his not receiving due applause among his countrymen, as I know none of their critics who have spoken of him as he deserves, and very few indeed who have mentioned him at all. I fuppofe he was a member of no academy. LEST my Letter fhould extend to an unreasonable length, I shall defer my observations on the French and English lyric writers till my next. LET I' LETTER XX. F the French have any title to a legitimate poetry, it is that of the leffer lyric style. Their language, pretty and familiar, can never rife to the fublime; which indeed, fo far as I can fee, their poets of any clafs have never yet attained, not excepting Corneille himself, whofe vaunted Qu'il mourut is, to a British reader, a very trivial thought. We should deny the French, with their epic poems, tragedies, and comedies in rime! any poetry at all, were it not for fuch writers as La Fontaine in the leffer narrative, and Malherbe, Chaulieu, De la Motte, and the elder Rouffeau, in the lyric. RONSARD was once a fashionable lyric writer in France, and nothing can be a ftronger proof of the false taste of his age. We have in our days feen a writer fashionable, because he used a pedantic jargon of Roman English; Ronfard was was likewise fashionable in his day, because he wrote in Grecian French. I hope by and bye the time will come when the most distant imitation of the fentiments and manner of claffic writers (for example, Boileau's of Horace and Juvenal) will become, as i deferves, as ridiculous and contemptible as Ronfard's adoption of their verbage and idiom. MALHERBE has great merit, as the refiner and reftorer of the French language; but I know of only one ode he has written which may yet be read with pleasure; and that is the one addreffed to the Duke of Bellegarde. CHAULIEU's character and works you well know he is read more, and De la Motte lefs, than he ought to be. The real beauties of De la Motte's odes are thicker fown than thofe other French writer. of any ROUSSEAU'S Ode To Fortune has been much praifed; but, in my opinion, yields to that addreffed to the Marquis de la Fare, which has great merit: witness these ftanzas. Loin |