Volume I Part 61 (1/2)
As to his Ossianic poesy, we are not very good judges, being in truth, so moderately skilled in that species of composition, that we should, in all probability, be criticizing some bit of the genuine Macpherson itself, were we to express our opinion of Lord Byron's rhapsodies. If, then, the following beginning of a ”Song of Bards” is by his lords.h.i.+p, we venture to object to it, as far as we can comprehend it. ”What form rises on the roar of clouds? whose dark ghost gleams on the red stream of tempests? His voice rolls on the thunder; 'tis Orla, the brown chief of Oithona. He ”was,” etc. After detaining this ”brown chief” some time, the bards conclude by giving him their advice to ”raise his fair locks;”
then to ”spread them on the arch of the rainbow;” and to ”smile through the tears of the storm.” Of this kind of thing there are no less than _nine_ pages; and we can so far venture an opinion in their favour, that they look very like Macpherson; and we are positive they are pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome.
It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should ”use it as not abusing it;” and particularly one who piques himself (though indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) on being ”an infant bard,”--(”The artless Helicon I boast is youth”)--should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited, on the family seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the self-same subject, introduced with an apology, ”he certainly had no intention of inserting it,” but really ”the particular request of some friends,” etc., etc. It concludes with five stanzas on himself, ”the last and youngest of a n.o.ble line.” There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on Lachin y Gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, and might have learnt that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle.
As the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalise his employments at school and college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, called ”Granta,” we have the following magnificent stanzas:--
There, in apartments small and damp, The candidate for college prizes, Sits poring by the midnight lamp, Goes late to bed, yet early rises.
Who reads false quant.i.ties in Sele, Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle, Deprived of many a wholesome meal, In barbarous Latin doom'd to wrangle:
Renouncing every pleasing page, From authors of historic use; Preferring to the letter'd sage, The square of the hypothenuse.
Still harmless are these occupations, That hurt none but the hapless student, Compared with other recreations, Which bring together the imprudent.”
We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college psalmody as is contained in the following Attic stanzas:--
”Our choir would scarcely be excused Even as a band of raw beginners; All mercy now must be refused To such a set of croaking sinners.
If David, when his toils were ended, Had heard these blockheads sing before him, To us his psalms had ne'er descended: In furious mood he would have tore 'em!”
But, whatever judgment may be pa.s.sed on the poems of this n.o.ble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. He is, at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of Parna.s.sus: he never lived in a garret, like thorough-bred poets; and ”though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland,” he has not of late enjoyed this advantage.
Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and, whether it succeeds or not, ”it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits hereafter,” that he should again condescend to become an author. Therefore, let us take what we get, and be thankful. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so much from a man of this lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but ”has the sway” of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid G.o.d bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth.
APPENDIX III.
REVIEW OF GELL'S GEOGRAPHY OF ITHACA', AND 'ITINERARY OF GREECE'.
(From the Monthly Review for August, 1811.)
That laudable curiosity concerning the remains of cla.s.sical antiquity, which has of late years increased among our countrymen, is in no traveller or author more conspicuous than in Mr. Gell. Whatever difference of opinion may yet exist with regard to the success of the several disputants in the famous Trojan controversy [1], or, indeed, relating to the present author's merits as an inspector of the Troad, it must universally be acknowledged that any work, which more forcibly impresses on our imaginations the scenes of heroic action, and the subjects of immortal song, possesses claims on the attention of every scholar.
Of the two works which now demand our report, we conceive the former to be by far the most interesting to the reader, as the latter is indisputably the most serviceable to the traveller. Excepting, indeed, the running commentary which it contains on a number of extracts from Pausanias and Strabo, it is, as the t.i.tle imports, a mere itinerary of Greece, or rather of Argolis only, in its present circ.u.mstances. This being the case, surely it would have answered every purpose of utility much better by being printed as a pocket road-book of that part of the Morea; for a quarto is a very unmanageable travelling companion. The maps [2] and drawings, we shall be told, would not permit such an arrangement; but as to the drawings, they are not in general to be admired as specimens of the art; and several of them, as we have been a.s.sured by eye-witnesses of the scenes which they describe, do not compensate for their mediocrity in point of execution, by any extraordinary fidelity of representation. Others, indeed, are more faithful, according to our informants. The true reason, however, for this costly mode of publication is in course to be found in a desire of gratifying the public pa.s.sion for large margins, and all the luxury of typography; and we have before expressed our dissatisfaction with Mr.
Gell's aristocratical mode of communicating a species of knowledge, which ought to be accessible to a much greater portion of cla.s.sical students than can at present acquire it by his means:--but, as such expostulations are generally useless, we shall be thankful for what we can obtain, and that in the manner in which Mr. Gell has chosen to present it.
The former of these volumes, we have observed, is the most attractive in the closet. It comprehends a very full survey of the far-famed island which the hero of the 'Odyssey' has immortalized; for we really are inclined to think that the author has established the ident.i.ty of the modern 'Theaki' with the 'Ithaca' of Homer. At all events, if it be an illusion, it is a very agreeable deception, and is effected by an ingenious interpretation of the pa.s.sages in Homer that are supposed to be descriptive of the scenes which our traveller has visited. We shall extract some of these adaptations of the ancient picture to the modern scene, marking the points of resemblance which appear to be strained and forced, as well as those which are more easy and natural; but we must first insert some preliminary matter from the opening chapter. The following pa.s.sage conveys a sort of general sketch of the book, which may give our readers a tolerably adequate notion of its contents:--
”The present work may adduce, by a simple and correct survey of the island, coincidences in its geography, in its natural productions, and moral state, before unnoticed. Some will be directly pointed out; the fancy or ingenuity of the reader may be employed in tracing others; the mind familiar with the imagery of the 'Odyssey' will recognise with satisfaction the scenes themselves; and this volume is offered to the public, not entirely without hopes of vindicating the poem of Homer from the scepticism of those critics who imagine that the 'Odyssey' is a mere poetical composition, unsupported by history, and unconnected with the localities of any particular situation.
”Some have a.s.serted that, in the comparison of places now existing with the descriptions of Homer, we ought not to expect coincidence in minute details; yet it seems only by these that the kingdom of Ulysses, or any other, can be identified, as, if such an idea be admitted, every small and rocky island in the Ionian Sea, containing a good port, might, with equal plausibility, a.s.sume the appellation of Ithaca.
”The Venetian geographers have in a great degree contributed to raise those doubts which have existed on the ident.i.ty of the modern with the ancient Ithaca, by giving, in their charts, the name of Val di Compare to the island. That name is, however, totally unknown in the country, where the isle is invariably called Ithaca by the upper ranks, and Theaki by the vulgar. The Venetians have equally corrupted the name of almost every place in Greece; yet, as the natives of Epactos or Naupactos never heard of Lepanto, those of Zacynthos of Zante, or the Athenians of Settines, it would be as unfair to rob Ithaca of its name, on such authority, as it would be to a.s.sert that no such island existed, because no tolerable representation of its form can be found in the Venetian surveys.
”The rare medals of the Island, of which three are represented in the t.i.tle-page, might be adduced as a proof that the name of Ithaca was not lost during the reigns of the Roman emperors. They have the head of Ulysses, recognised by the pileum, or pointed cap, while the reverse of one presents the figure of a c.o.c.k, the emblem of his vigilance, with the legend [Greek:IThAK_ON]. A few of these medals are preserved in the cabinets of the curious, and one also, with the c.o.c.k, found in the island, is in the possession of Signor Zavo, of Bathi.