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and that it is of itself enough to establish Tasso's right to walk within that magic circle, which Dryden has pronounced to be the exclusive domain of Shakspeare.

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'No twist, no twig, no bough, nor branch therefore,
The Saracines cut from sacred spring,
But yet the Christians spared ne'er the more

The trees to earth, with cutting steel to bring;
Thither went Ismen old, with tresses hoar,

When night on all this earth spread forth her wing;
And there, in silence deaf and mirksome shade,
His characters and circles vain he made.

"He in the circle set one foot unshod,

And whispered dreadful charms in ghastly wise
Three times, for witchcraft loveth numbers odd,
Toward the east he gaped, westward thrice;
He struck the earth thrice with his charmed rod,
Wherewith dead bones he makes from graves to rise:
And thrice the ground with naked foot he smote,
And thus he cried aloud with thundering note:

Hear! hear! ye spirits all, that whilome fell

Cast down from heaven with dint of roaring thunder,
Hear! ye amid the empty air that dwell

And storms and showers pour on these kingdoms under !
Hear! all ye devils that lie in deepest hell

And rend with torments damned ghosts asunder,

And of those lands of death, of pain and fear

Thou monarch great, great Dis, great Pluto, hear.

Keep ye this forest well, keep every tree,
Numbered I give you them, and truly told
As souls of men in bodies clothed be,

So every plant a sprite shall hide and hold,
With trembling fear make all the Christians flee
When they presume to cut these cedars old—
This said, his charms he 'gan again repeat,
Which none can say but those who use like feat.

At those strange speeches still night's splendent fires
Quenched their lights and shrunk away for doubt,
The feeble moon her silver beams retires,

And wraps her horns with folding clouds about.
Ismen his sprites to come with speed requires-
Why come ye not, ye ever damned rout?

Why tarry ye so long? pardie ye stay,
Till stronger charms and greater words I say.
'I have not yet forgot for want of use

What dreadful terms belong this sacred feat,
My tongue, if still your stubborn hearts refuse,
That so much dreaded name can well repeat,
Which heard, great Dis cannot himself excuse,
But hither run from his eternal seat;

Oh great and fearful-more he would have said,
But that he saw the sturdy sprits obeyed.'

Of Fairfax's elegance of diction, a quality so essential in a poetical translator, we have forborne to speak till now, lest we should be suspected of extravagance. The samples which we have given of this work, inadequate as they necessarily are, will shew, that we do not exaggerate in asserting, that his phraseology is scarcely surpassed in splendor by that of Milton. One quality of his style is so striking, that we cannot avoid pointing it out more particularly. He has fewer words and phrases which are now obsolete, we do not say than any of the English authors of that period, but than many of their imitators of the present day. For this class of readers, he possesses few recommendations. They will often be obliged to wade through whole pages of our plain vernacular tongue, without finding one of those quaint expressions, those gems, or rather those talismans of eloquence, by the frequent use of which they hope so confidently to outdo all, who are willing to write in the modern dialect of Pope and Addison, of Goldsmith and Franklin, of Alison and Campbell. For ourselves, it has afforded us no little pleasure to observe so exact a resemblance between the diction of Fairfax and that of most of his illustrious literary successors, at the distance of two centuries. This circumstance is a striking confirmation of the opinion, which we have always entertained, that our language has continued during that period materially the same, and that with a few exceptions, those forms of speech only have fallen into disuse, which either were of trifling value in themselves, or have been superseded by something better.

Such as our vocabulary is, there is little reason to complain of its scantiness, and little need of enlarging it, by coining new, or reviving antiquated expressions. There is as much affectation, though of an opposite nature, in the latter as in the

former of these practices, and we need fear nothing for our mother tongue, while a general regard is paid to the precept expressed in the following couplet.

'Be not the first by whom the new are tried,

Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.'

ART. VIII.—Oeuvres inedites de Madame la Baronne de Stael, publiées par son fils. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, Strasbourg et Londres. 1821.

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THE celebrated Rembrandt, one of the principal ornaments of the Flemish school of painting, did not enjoy, in his lifetime, all the reputation which has since been attached to his name. Fame and fortune are capricious; and Rembrandt, in the pride of genius, neglected the courtly arts, that are sometimes necessary to obtain the favor of these charming divinities. He found himself, accordingly, with all his merit, in very imminent danger of starving and in order to enhance the value of his pictures, and anticipate some of the advantages of a high posthumous reputation, he retired from public view, and circulated a report of his own death. No sooner was this sad event made known, than the hundred tongues of fame were immediately vocal in loud commendation of the departed painter and what was more to his purpose, his pictures rose instantaneously in value, and were bought up with a sort of fury. After reaping this golden harvest, and disposing of all the pictures he had on hand, the artist returned to life, and resumed his labors with new alacrity, and increased contempt for the good sense and taste of the public. This anecdote has been wrought up by a French writer into a little comedy; and in order to give it the additional interest of a seasoning of gallantry, the painter's wife is represented as a second Penelope, besieged, like the queen of Ithaca, in consequence of the supposed death of her husband, by innumerable suitors. She is described, however, as not possessing quite the constancy of that illustrious personage,' and as not being wholly disinclined to anticipate also, in her own way, some of the advantages, that might be expected to result from her husband's actual decease, so that the poor painter has more reasons than one for making haste to return to life.

This little anecdote, true or false, serves to illustrate pleasantly enough the value of fame, and the uncertainty there is, whether the judgments of contemporaries will be annulled or confirmed by posterity. No writer of our own times has enjoyed, upon the whole, so extensive a reputation as Madame de Stael obtained in the latter part of her literary career. The productions of some others have been read with nore pleasure, in smaller circles, or rated higher by a few judges who were able to appreciate them; but taking into view the extent of the public to which she addressed herself, as well as her success in obtaining its favor, it would be difficult to find a name that can come in competition with hers, since the time of Voltaire and Rousseau. Or if this should be contested, it will readily be granted by all, that she was one of the most popular writers of her time. Notwithstanding this, she had critics and very severe ones; nor has her death wholly silenced them, as it did those of the Flemish artist. We have seen but a few days since, in a German work of great merit, a solemn anathema against bad writers of various kinds, in which, among other denunciations equally severe, all Sapphos, Aspasias, and Corinnas, are sent, without ceremony, to the madhouse. This judgment savors too strongly in its rudeness as well as its severity, of the soil, and we imagine will not be confirmed, even by such critics in other countries as are less partial to the daughter of Necker. In fact, if we are rightly informed, although Madame de Stael was received with great attention in the higher circles of German society, the scholars of that country, who wield the sceptre of criticism, have never looked upon her with an eye of favor. Her learning appeared to them scanty and superficial, and quite insufficient to justify her in giving her opinions so freely as she did on large and difficult questions. Accustomed themselves to push their inquiries with an expense of much time and unwearied labor into the minutest details of fact, they are unwilling to acknowledge that these toils are unnecessary for the purpose of arriving at just conclusions: and that it is possible to reason correctly upon general subjects, by means of observations made exclusively on large masses and leading points. By French critics, on the contrary, Madame de Stael has been reproached with affecting too much the German taste, with indulging in vague and obscure modes of expression, with deviating from the pure and lucid perspicuity that distinguishes the best

French writers, and adopting the manner they call romantic, without precisely knowing themselves what they mean by this term. These objections refer to the style of her works, but the substance of them has also been freely handled. The moral in some has been regarded as loose, and in all as bordering on extravagance and mysticism. Her political philosophy has dissatisfied the zealots of every party. The republicans dislike her passion for historical names,' and the royalists her zeal for liberal institutions. Some quarrel with her hatred for Bonaparte and others with her passion for the British government. Meanwhile, these objections, in most of which there is a greater or less degree of foundation, did not prevent her reputation from extending itself regularly and rapidly up to the time of her death. Her name and merit were comparatively little known till the publication of Corinna. This work diffused her fame far and wide; and her subsequent more serious productions established it on solid foundations. Instead of outliving her reputation like some authors, and degenerating from the excellence of her earlier efforts, each book that she published was regularly more valuable than the one preceding, and her great posthumous work on the French revolution far excelled any she had previously written, and gave the last finish to her literary character.

It may be supposed by some, that the elevated social position of Madame de Stael, her rank, wealth, and titles, contributed something to her literary success; but this idea is not very plausible. Other ministers have had daughters besides M. Necker, and there have been baronesses of higher standing in the rolls of heraldry, and perhaps of larger fortunes, though hers was very great, whose names are never seen in a critical review. In fact, whatever could be done for Madame de Stael by the advantages of her birth and fortune, was effected at a very early period of her life, and we have seen that her reputation was principally the fruit of her later labors, performed at a time when she was persecuted, in exile, and comparatively poor. The remark of Pope, upon the great influence of high social standing in sanctifying dullness, like many others of his satirical sallies, has very little foundation. The rarity of great merit, whether in the loftiest or the lowest ranks of society, makes us perceive it, when it really exists. there, with increased satisfaction: but if the public is disposed to be indulgent in either case, it seems to be rather to the

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