lent, the sound of quadrupeds,' would be in a modern poet, if used to express the sound of horses. "Let us take another example: 'Pastor cum traheret per freta navibus Idaeis Helenam perfidus hospitani.' Why is the word traheret used, which, as employed elsewhere, would imply the taking away of Helen against her will? Does it refer to one version of the story according to which Paris did bear her away by force? Were this the case, one would naturally expect, considering the reproachful and denunciatory character of the ode, to find that idea brought out more distinctly. Is it intended to express the reluctance with which, though yielding to her love for Paris, she left her husband and her home? This conception is too refined for an ancient poet to trust to its being made apparent by so light a touch, if indeed we may suppose it to have entered his mind. Was traheret then intended, by its associations with an act of violence, to denote the rapidity and fear of the flight of Paris? or was it merely employed abusively, to use a technical term-only with reference to a part of its signification, as words are not unfrequently used in poetry, though it is always an imperfection? "Such cases are very numerous, in which no modern reader can pronounce with just confidence upon the character of the poetical language of the ancients. Instances are frequently occurring in which, if we admire at all, we must admire at second-hand, upon trust. The meaning and effect of words have undergone changes which it is often not easy, and often not possible, to ascertain with precision. Even in our own language this is the case. Shakspeare says Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark "Here Johnson understands him as presenting the ludicrous conception of the ministers of vengeance peeping through a blanket;' and Coleridge, as we see by his TableTalk, conjectured that instead of blanket,' blank height' was perhaps written by Shakspeare. But by Heaven' we conceive to be meant not the ministers of vengeance, but the lights of heaven; and it is not unpoetical to speak of the moon and stars as peeping through clouds. With the word 'blanket, our associations are trivial and low; but understand it merely as denoting a thick covering of darkness which closely enwraps the lights of heaven, and it suits well to its place. But our associations with the word are accidental: there is nothing intrinsically more mean in a blanket than a sheet, yet none would object to the expression of a sheet of light.' The fortunes of the words only have been different, and that, in all probability, since the time of Shakspeare, considering his use of this word, and the corresponding use of the word rug by Drayton,1 "If such be the character of poetical language, it is clear that, to judge with critical accuracy of that of a distant age or even a foreign land, requires uncommon knowledge and discrimination, as well as an accurate taste; while unfortunately, profound scholarship and cultivated and elegant habits of mind have very rarely been united in the study of the ancient poets. The supposition of a peculiar felicity of expression in their writings is to be judged of, in most cases, rather by extrinsic probabilities, which do not favour it, than by any direct and clear evidence of it that can be produced. We are very liable in this particular to be biassed by prepossession and authority; our imaginations often deceive us; we create the beauty which we fancy that we find. "There is perhaps no poet, in whose productions the characteristics of which we have spoken as giving a superiority to the poetry of later times over that which has preceded, appear more strikingly than in those of Mrs Hemans. When, after reading such works as she has written, we turn over the volumes of a collection of English poetry, like that of Chalmers, we cannot but perceive that the greater part of it appears more worthless and distasteful than before. Much is evidently the work of barren and unformed, vulgar and vicious minds, of individuals without any conception of poetry as the glowing expression of what is most noble in our nature, and often with no title to the name of poet, but from having put into metre thoughts too mean for prose. Such writings as those of Mrs Hemans at once afford evidence of the advance of our race, and are among the most important means of its further purification and progress. The minds, which go forth from their privacy to act with strong moral power upon thousands and ten thousands of other minds, are the real agents in advancing the character of man, and improving his condition. They are instruments of the invisible operations of the Spirit of God."-Christian Examiner, Jan. 1836. 1 See examples, in the notes to Shakspeare. INDEX Aaron's,Rod, 405 Abbotsford, farewell to, 508 Aber church, sonnet on, 603 Affection, prayer of, 596 Aged friend, to an, 620 Aged Indian, the, 56 "Ah cease!" from Metastasio, 49 Album at Rosanna, lines written for of Miss F. A. L., lines written in Alcestis, death-song of, 502 - of Alfieri, the, 121 Alp-horn song, 294 Alpine horn, the, 545 Alps, league of the, 234 the shepherd-poet of the, 512 American forest girl, the, 406 "Amidst the bitter tears," from Camoens, 46 Ancestral song, the, 467 Ancient battle-song, 539 Brother and sister in the country, to my, 2 Brother's dirge, the, 545 Bruce at the source of the Nile, 363 of an emigrant's child in the - of William the Conqueror, the, 537 491 "By a mountain-stream at rest," 566 Caius Gracchus of Monti, translations Cambrian in America, the, 148 Caravan in the desert, the, 210 Carpio, Bernardo del, 456 Carthage, Marius among the ruins of, 212 Casabianca, 369 Castri, the view from, 251 Caswallon's triumph, 150 Cavern of the three Tells, the, 341 Chant of the bards before their mas- Charlotte, the princess, stanzas on the Charmed picture, the, 458 Chatillon, de, a tragedy, 300 Chaulieu, translation from, 52 of the forests, the, 359 - last sleep, the, 431 445, 466, 517, 632 Christ, on a remembered picture of, 601 - Infant, with flowers, picture of stilling the tempest, 355 437 Church, old, in an English park, 603 Cicero, death of, 89 note Cid, songs of the, 238 departure into exile, the, 238 Clanronald, death of, 58 Cleopatra and Anthony, last banquet Cliffs of Dover, the, 376 Coeur-de-Lion at the bier of his father, Greek lament, 627 484 star, to the, 560 Exile's dirge, the, 457 Fair Helen of Kirkconnel, 561 -song, 562 Faith of love, the, 507 o'er the sea, 546 Fata Morgana, the, 38 Faunus, to, from Horace, 299 603 Festal hour, the, 252 Fiesco, prologue to the tragedy of, 520 from the field of Grütli, on a, 244 Flowers, 628 - and music in a room of sick- day of, 592 dial of, 369 Foliage, 621 Forest sanctuary, the, 316 "Fortune, why thus," from Metastasio, 48 Fourteenth century, a tale of the, 213 Fouqué, Brandenburg harvest-song, Fragment," Rest on your battle-fields," Freed bird, the, 521 Friend, to an aged, 620 Funeral-day of Sir Walter Scott, the, 585 hymn, 581 Future, a thought of the, 498 Gafran's sea-song, 146 Garcilaso de la Vega, "Divine Eliza," from, 296 Gargano, mount, 90 Genius singing to love, 554 Genoa, night-scene in, 99 George III, stanzas to the memory of, of the Vaudois mountaineers, "I dream of all things free," 546 "I would we had not met again," 565 Il Conte di Carmagnola, the, 125 in the heart, the, 461 Impromptu to Miss F. A. L., 499 Indian, the aged, 56 with his dead child, the, 450 woman's death-song, 402 Indian's revenge, 590 Inez de Castro, coronation of, 448 Infant Christ with flowers, picture of Marius among the ruins of Carthage, 212 Mary at the feet of Christ, 599 the memorial of, 599 resurrection, 600 Memory of a sister-in-law, to the, 486 of Lord Charles Murray, to of Sir E. Pakenham, to the, 55 Message to the dead, the, 459 answer to, 343 note Metastasio, translations from, 47 North American Review, the, 113, 293, Northern spring, the, 533 Norton, professor, 113, 186, 293, 336, Norwegian war-song, 567 "O thou breeze of spring," 503 "O ye voices gone," 566 "O ye voices round," 545 O'Connor's child, 508 Ode on the defeat of Sebastian of Portugal, 254 "O'er the far blue mountains," 563 Old church in an English park, an, Olive tree, the, 602 Orange bough, the, 543 Lady's well, 365 Owen Glyndwr's war-song, 149 Pæstan rose, the, 28 note Painter's last work, the, 595 603 Pakenham, Sir E., to the memory of, 55 Palm-tree, the, 430 l'almer, the, 501 Paradise, a thought of, 606 Parting of summer, the, 366 ship, the, 473 song, a, 500 Passing away, 489 Pastorini, sonnet from, 49 Patriarchal life, images of, 620 Patriotic effusions of the Italian poets, Paul and Virginia, on reading, 620 Peasant girl of the Rhone, the, 401 Penitence, the song of, 609 Penitent anointing Christ's feet, the, Penitent's offering, the, 496 return, the, 605 Petrarch, translations from, 51 Pilgrim fathers, landing of the, 429 "Father in heaven," 21 in the wilderness, the, 586 of affection, 596 of the lonely student, 577 Prince Madoc's farewell, 149 Prologue to the Poor Gentleman, 21 Properzia Rozzi, 392 Psalm cxlviii. paraphrase of, 533 Psyche borne by zephyrs to the island Quarterly Review, the, 62, 105, 114 Rainbow, the, 529 Records of immature genius, on, 617 buried in her own ruins, 50 a thought of the, 518 Ruin, the, 469 and its flowers, the, 13 Rural walks, 3 Ruth, 598 Sabbath sonnet, 629 St Cecilia, for a picture of, 505 Scene in a Dalecarlian mine, 357 Schepler, Louise, two sonnets to, 603 Schiller's Wallenstein, 426 Schmidt, the Wanderer from, 523 Schwerin, marshal, grave of, 555 Scott, Sir Walter, 508, 534 funeral-day of, 585 Sculptured children, the, 496 night-hymn at, 597 - prayer at, 589 - of Marathon, the, 295 song of memory, the, 358 Song for air by Hummel, 490 - founded on an Arabian anecdote, of Delos, 535 of emigration, 451 of hope, the, 546 of Mina's soldiers, 541 of night, the, 471 of penitence, the, 609 of the battle of Morgarten, the, of the rose, a, 550 of the Spanish wanderer, 361 Songs for summer hours, 541 of a guardian spirit, 538 of captivity, 545 of our fathers, the, 366 of Spain, 539 of the affections, 442 of the Cid, 238 Sonnet, "A child midst ancient, 601 "Crowning a flowery slope," "Doth thy heart stir," 619 64 Exempt from every grief," 47 "For there a holy," 603 My earliest memories," 618 "Oh! what a joy," 621 "Once more the eternal," 622 "Pause not," 49 "Pilgrim, whose steps," 138 523 "Saved from the perils," 46 "Still are the cowslips," 619 Sylph of the breeze," 51 "The sainted spirit," 50 "There are who climb," 622 There blooms a plant," 46 "These marble domes," 50 They float before my soul," "This green recess," 51 "Thou by whose power," 45 "Trees, gracious trees," 619 623 |