VIDA. For the Anthology. SILVA, No. 36. In the pontificate of Leo X. a small band of Latin poets appeared, whose productions some have ventured to pronounce worthy of the Augustan age. Among this number was Vida. His Art of Poetry contains many excellent precepts, founded in genuine criticism, and entitles him to a high rank among those bards,who sang so sweetly after the revival of letters in Italy. Every one recollects the lines of Pope on Leo's golden days,' in which 'A Raphael painted and a Vida sung. Immortal Vida; on whose honour'd brow The poet's bays and critick's ivy grow: Cremona now shall ever boast thy name, As next in place to Mantua, next in fame!' It would not appear wonderful if Pope should pilfer a little from one whom he has praised so much. I have never seen it suggested that he was particularly indebted to Vida; and not many palpable instances can be found of the plagiarism direct but there are certain features of resemblance between his Essay on Criticism, and Vida's Art of Poetry, which indicate a degree of consanguinity. The directions to study the ancients, particularly Homer and Virgil, and especially to draw from nature; the deprecating of harmony acquired at the expense of meaning; and the advice respecting the choice of words, are prominent topicks in each; though there is no correspondence in the arrange ment. The plan of giving examples to shew the adaptation of the sound Atque adeo, siquid geritur molimine magno Adde moram, et pariter tecum quoque verba laborent Segnia... Z. iii. v. 415. If some large weight his huge arm strive to shove, The verse too labours, the throng'd words scarce move. PITT. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow. POPE. It appears highly probable, that in these, and in some other examples which might be selected, Pitt was in some degree, as well an imitator of Pope, as the translator of Vida. There is in some couplets of the two poems, a coincidence in the rhymes, in the combination of words, and in the character of the verse, which could scarcely have occurred, if he had received no impressions from Pope. Pitt has sometimes exceeded his duty as a translator, has refined upon the materials of his author, and become extremely artificial in his exemplifications. But his poem, considered both as a translation and a polished composition, ensures to him the reputation of fidelity and taste. THE chief purposes of the illuminated author of this play evidently are to dazzle and seduce a romantick fancy, to raise delightful and exalted notions of a savage state of nature, and, by partial delineation and false colouring, degrade and calumniate the mild doctrines of christianity. Elvira, to excuse her prostitution to Pizarro, tells us, it was the superiour fame and glory of his character that first gained and afterwards held her affections to him; when no one can discover the least spark of true glory either in his mind or his achievements, as he is drawn by the author: nothing appears in him but selfish meanness, gloomy revenge, brutal ferocity, and unmanly cruelty; and from the character of this particular individual, thus distorted and exaggerated, is drawn a general conclusion against christians and christianity. But this character of Pizarro is not a That strong friendships exist among savages, we have often been inforined, and we know that their state is peculiarly calculated to call forth such feelings; but we also know that love, with them, is merely a sensual appetite, which never rises to a refined and generous sentiment : we know that all their pleasures, propensities, and habits, are gross and brutish; their passions ungovernably violent, their revenge most cruel, and their notions of morality and religion such as naturally flow from ignorance and caprice, working upon incongruous and imperfectly transmit ted traditions. The Mexicans and Peruvians were cruel almost beyond belief, for not a rite of their religion was celebrated without human blood, and prisoners were offered up by thousands in sacrifice to their infernal deities! Yet it is for such a people, and such a state of things, that we are to give up all we possess; to abandon our religion, laws, and civilization; all that we have proved by solid reasoning and long experience, all we know of certain good, for the hypothetical possibility of extravagant and spurious virtues, for a vain, new-fangled, and Proteuslike philosophy. Kotzebue (the author) has not the temerity to avow his purpose; he dares not openly attack, but he undermines; he pretends to allow the position, that we are not to do evil that good may come of it,' yet he insidiously endeavours not only to destroy the axiom he allows, but even to bring about the worst end by the worst means; he prostitutes his talents to the basest purposes; he operates powerfully upon the strongest passions and tenderest feelings of the human heart; he enlists all the energies and sympathies of our nature, in the cause of fallacy and deceit, against established reason and Such is the nature eternal truth. and tendency of this pernicious composition. A LONDON WINTER. IN a Paris winter the beau monde crowd to the Metropolis. with the fall of the leaf; and the desolation of the fields and groves, the approach of fogs, rain, snow, frost, short days, and long nights are signals, which all ranks obey. They quit the dreary solitude of the country and hurry up to Town, in which Spectacles, Balls and illuminated Saloons attract their multitudes, and the People of Fashion s'approchent ! This is a Paris winter, commencing in the very beginning of November-and yet these people pretend to lead the ton of the world, and to give laws to polished society! They regulate themselves by the economy of nature; they implicitly follow the order of the seasons, and yet they make pretensions to taste and luxury! How unlike a London Winter! How much superiour is the graceful indifference, which we shew to the changes of the year-to the state of the weather-to the rules and laws, which the vegetable world (and which only animals born to vegetate) are doomed to obey! Our Winter has nothing to do with the season!So far from commencing with the fall of the leaf, Winter does not begin,till Nature shall have put forth the blossoms of regeneration. No woman, who values her reputation for taste, ventures to come to town for the Winter till the month of May; and it is not unusual to see a family of the highest research postpone the burst of its entré into the winter circles till after the King's Birth-day.-Every thing, to be fashionable, must be out of seaso-A dejeuné is suffocating, if given before three o'clock in the afternoon. A man of fashion never takes the morning air in Rotten-row till after sun-set.-No evening party begins till midnight; and it is indispensible to the character of a Member of Parliament, "that after a long debate, he should go to his dinner at six o'clock in the morning. It must be dinner whatever be the hour, and however often he may have restored at Bellamy's. It is the sign of pure unadulterate simplicity to act like the herd, who eat when they're hungry, and drink when they're dry; and the Parisians have made no higher attainments in ton than the Hottentots, if they regulate their hours by the daily sun, or their seasons by his place in the Zodiack. The London Winter begins in April, and rages in May. It is then that our women of fashion find the weather deliciously inclement; and the only remedy against its rigour is in the comfort of compression. It is only by squeezing several hundreds more into a set of rooms than they were ever destined to contain, that the severity of a London winter can be resisted. In Paris the people of fashion only s'approchent. In London they dove-tail. In Paris there is society-in London there is a crowd. It would be intolerable in a fashionable assembly at the West-end of the Town, if there was room for enjoyment. Indeed the word itself is obsolete; for enjoyment belongs only to the miserable people, whom nobody knows. It is the invariable test and criterion of high-breeding to counteract the rules of common life; and therefore to be at your case in an assembly, into which you enter, is a disappointment. To remain in one place is a sign that you are not in request; and your triumph for the night consists in the number of crowds, through which you have jostled. Nothing can be so unlike indeed, as a Paris and a London Winter. In Paris the Haut Ton love the Pêle Mêle at publick places, and the partie chaisée at home. They countenance all efforts for general entertainment, and in their own hotels their parties are select. They have a weekly night, and they distribute their invitations, so as to accommodate, as well as entertain their friends. By this means they never interfere with, nor annoy the spectacles, nor affect the enterprize of professional artists. Here a woman of supreme attraction has her nights en suite, and she shines par excellence, who puts her friends to the greatest degree of oppression. To be able to stir is an accident, and to get in or out you must watch for an opportunity. It is indispensible to character to treat every thing that is publick with contempt, and never to be seen in a place to which every body may go it is the pinnacle of Ton, therefore, for a Lady of Fashion to open her own house for the benefit of some dear delightful Italian, who will bring all the world together, and yet keep it elegantly crowded. This is at once conspicuous and economical. The Lady gives a grand Concert at home, and has fifty invitations as her part of the benefit. Oh ! what a novelty in the refinements of House-wifery ! The Lady of a Duke, Marquis, or Earl, with a revenue of fifty thousand a year, sharing in the benefit of an Italian Fidler-But it is Ton-and the character of the Lady depends on the multitudes she can attract. Such is our gay Season!—A Paris Winter has its agremens-a London Winter has its eclat, and subsides in June.-London Morn. Chronicle, GRAY. WHEN Gray's odes first appeared, they were received with disapprobation. But their quaint and affected language, the false glitter of florid epithet, and the repeated recurrence of alliteration, attracted the admiration of certain criticks, who applauded them as the genuine offspring of lyrick sublimity. This opinion, adopted afterwards by Warton and Wakefield, seems now very generally to prevail, notwithstanding the objections of Johnson, which still remain unrefuted. Every man of literature has an undoubted right to decide for himself on a controverted point, and I confess myself of that party who think Gray a mechanical poet. His Elegy is indeed an unique, and deserves all the praise, which it has received. His ode to Adversity also contains both poetry and good sense. But of his other odes, though we may allow that they have mille ornatus, we cannot justly add, that they have also mille decenter. Any man, conversant with poetick phraseology, might produce such odes, if he would devote his time and attention to the pursuit. He has only to select glittering and uncommon epithets, a brilliant periphrasis to describe a common object, with a few striking alliterations, and the business is accomplished. |