poem, and moreover is made in as few words as poffible, * The defcription of Carthage, with which Virgil opens his poem, is contained in fix verfes. He acquaints us, that this city is seated over-against Italy, facing the very mouth of the Tiber; that it is powerful in war; and that Juno defigned to make it the feat of univerfal monarchy; this is the cause of the anger of this deity; and as it conftitutes the plot of the poem, it was highly necessary to let the reader know thefe circumstances. We could not have imagined how Æolus could restrain and let loofe the winds, if we had not been informed, that they are inclofed in caverns, The poet therefore fpends twelve verses on this subje&, The fhips of Æneas, fo roughly handled by a tempeft, and at a season when the feas were liable to frequent and unforeseen storms, had need of an harbour that was intirely free from this danger, and that was safe and ftill; and fince it was in an unknown country, it was requifite, that this haven fhould be fituated in a private and fecret place. This is what Virgil defcribes in eleven verfes. The defcription of the Trojans being hard at work, and eager to leave Carthage (Æn. IV.). is likewife very artfully managed. On one hand, it shews the good effect the presence of a lord and master has over these labourers; on the other, the poet paints this their eagerness and attention, not fo much to the reader's as to Dido's view fhe there faw the preparative to her death, and every blow the ax and hammer ftruck, were like the ftabs of a dagger that pierced her heart. Can any thing be more moving than the ingenious application Virgil himself makes of this defcription, by which he plainly points out his intention in making it? *See Bossu, B. VI. Ch. z. Quis tibi nunc, Dido, cernenti talia, fenfus? If in the middle of a great action any thing is defcribed, that seems to interrupt and distract the reader's mind; it is requifite, that the effect of these descriptions be fuch, as may carry along with them their neceffity, and their reasonableness; and that, by this means, they may be. embodied, if I may fo fpeak, in the main action. We have one inftance of this in the battle of the eleventh book of the Æneid, where the poet ftops fhort, and runs out into fo minute a defcription of the arms and dress of Chloreus, En. 1. XI. v. 768. to. v. 782. Judicious readers might perhaps have been difgufted at this beauty fo carefully defcribed in the very heat of the battle, if the poet had only done it for their fakes. But the cafe is this: Camilla is charmed with thefe glittering accoutrements; the defire of them cofts her her life, gives the victory to the Trojans, and at once breaks all the meafures Turnus had taken against Æneas. These are fuch defcriptions as are judiciously introduced, and managed with discretion. They are not made for their own fakes only; they are not mere ornaments, and introduced to fhew the poet's talent of faying fine things. Seneca is far from obferving this temperance, and reservedness. If he has any recital to make, though never fo melancholy and pitiable, he begins it with fuch defcriptions as are not only useless, but ridiculous. Creon has a story to relate to Edipus, pregnant with all the circumstances of horror that can be conceived. He is intreated, he is threatened, and, after great figns of grief, for being forced to utter fo terrible a tale, he begins his narration with a defcription of a grove, which Edipus knew perfectly well, and frequently faw. But fuppofe he had never seen it, was he then at leifure (agitated as his mind was with fear and and anxiety) to be told, that this grove was full of cypress-trees, oaks, laurel, myrtle, alder, and pines ? that the cypress-trees are always green; that the laureltrees bear bitter berries; that the alder-trees were proper to build fhips, which ride on the wide ocean; that the oaks of this grove had their branches distorted and eat up with age; that time had gnawed the bark off this, that the roots of that could no longer fupport it; and that it would tumble down, were it not propped up by the trunk of another tree? The whole is too long, and too affectedly unnatural, to be transcribed; but the reader may see it in the third act of Seneca's dipus, beginning at ver. 530. In fhort, the management of defcriptions, and how to introduce them with propriety, is fo difficult and artful a task, that even Homer himself is thought sometimes to have erred in this particular; as, for instance, in the fifth book of the Iliad, ver. 722. where he spends feveral lines in minutely describing the fine chariot of Juno, at a time when the reader expected to be hurried inftantly into the thickest of the battle: For why should Homer deck the gorgeous car, Two of the longest descriptions in Virgil (except that of Fame, which I think cannot well be defended) are the ferpents, in the second book, that destroy Laocoon; and of the ghost of Hector that appears to Æneas, to inform him of the treachery of Sinon, and of the inevitable deftruction of Troy, whofe gods he commits to his care, and bids him immediately set out in search of the empire the fates had defigned for him. The reader at one view fees the neceffity and importance of both these descriptions, especially the laft, in which he muft equally ad mire the pathos, and the propriety. Milton had been unpardonable, if he had indulged his luxuriant fancy in defcribing the ferpent in fo many lines, and in such gaudy colours, as he has spent upon it, B. IX. if this ferpent had not been the inftrument of that temptation on which the whole action of his poem turns. The palace of Alcina in Ariofto, that of Armida in Taffo, and the bower of Blifs in Spenfer (manifeftly copied from Ariofto) take up too much room in their refpective places, are injudiciously introduced, are of little fervice to the fable, and are more in the tafte of the fairy defcriptions of the crystal and diamond palaces in the Arabian Nights Entertainments, or Don Bellianis of Greece, than of objects that ought to be admitted into an epic poem. The fame I think may be faid of M. de Voltaire's description of the temple of Love in his Henriade. V. Innumerable are the little ftrokes of nature and character in Virgil: of which the following inftances may be given, and than which, nothing more demonftrates a poet's judgment, and penetration into the human heart. The tenderness and piety of Æneas break out on every occafion; he pities and bewails Amycus, Gyas, and Orontes, whom he imagined to be lost in the storm; B. II. 222. he is put in mind of his own father's danger by feeing the death of old Priam, B. II. he himself carries this aged parent through the flames and tumult of the city; he endeavours to find his Creusa, whom he had unfortunately loft, by venturing back into the city, though the enemy then fully poffeffed it; and does not give over searching farther till her apparition warns him to retreat. He looks back to the walls of Carthage, when he was obliged by order of the gods to forfake Dido, with the utmost sorrow and regret ; efpecially when he saw the reflection of the flames of Dido's funeral fire: 5 Moenia * Moenia refpiciens, quae jam infelicis Elifae When he meets this unhappy queen in the fhades below, he accofts her in the tendereft manner imaginable: Was I the unhappy cause of your death! Funeris, heu tibi caufa fui! I fwear by all the powers both of heaven and hell, that I left your kingdom with the deepest reluctance and regret. But the very fame gods that have commanded me to vifit (as you now fee) thefe difinal infernal regions, laid on me their strict injunctions to forfake Carthage, and drove me out of your kingdom : Sed me juffa deûm, quae nunc has ire per umbras, So that Æneas gives her the most indisputable proof, even ocular demonftration, of his perfect obedience to the will of Heaven, the only motive that could have induced him to leave her. He adds very movingly, when he perceived fhe was going away, and would not stop to hear his defence; Siste gradum, teque afpectu ne fubtrahe noftro. Quem fugis? extremum fato quod te alloquor hoc eft. Again; Ariftotle fays, the manners of each perfonage fhould be fuitable (aquorlovra) to the sex, age, birth, education, and other circumftances, which ufually diftinguish and characterize one man from another. Thus the *This image always puts me in mind of that very fine one in the book of Genefis, chap. XIX. And Abraham looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and beheld; and lo! the fmoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. women |