Hints from Horace;" BEING AN ALLUSION, IN ENGLISH VERSE, TO THE EPISTLE "AD PISONES, DE ARTE POETICA," AND INTENDED AS A SEQUEL TO "ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS." Athens. Capuchin Convent, March 12, 1811.(2) Or low Dubost (3)-as once the world has seen- HUMANO capiti cervicem pictor equinam Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas, Indique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne; Spertatum admissi risum teneatis, amici ? Credite, Pisones, isti tabulæ fore librum Persimilem, cujus, velut ægri somnia, vanæ (1) Authors are apt, it is said, to estimate their performances more according to the trouble they have cost themselves, than the pleasure they afford to the public; and it is only in this way that we can pretend to account for the extraordinary value which Lord Byron attached, even many long years after they were written, to these Hints from Horace. The business of translating Horace has hitherto been a hopeless one; and notwithstanding the brilliant cleverness of some passages, in both Pope's and Swift's Imitations of him, there had been, on the whole, very little to encourage any one to meddle seriously even with that less difficult department. It is, comparatively, an easy affair to transfer the effect, or something like the effect, of the majestic declamations of Juvenal; but the Horatian satire is cast in a mould of such exquisite delicacy -uniting perfect ease with perfect elegance throughout* has hitherto defied all the skill of the moderns. Lord Byron, however, having composed this piece at Athens, in 511, and brought it home in the same desk with the first two rantos of Childe Harold, appears to have, on his arrival in London, contemplated its publication as far more likely to ncrease his reputation than that of his original poem. Perhaps Milton's preference of the Paradise Regained over the Paradise Lost is not a more decisive example of the extent to which a great author may mistake the source of is greatness. Lord Byron was prevented from publishing these lines, by a feeling which, considering his high notion of their merit, does him honour. By accident, or nearly so, the Harold came out before the Hints; and the reception of Le former was so flattering to Lord Byron, that it could scarcely fail to take off, for the time, the edge of his appetite for literary bitterness. In short, he found himself mixing constantly in society with persons who had-from Good sense, or good-nature, or from both-overlooked the etulancies of his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and it, as he said, that he should be "heaping coals of fire on head" if he were to persist in bringing forth a conscation of his juvenile lampoon. Nine years had passed ere he is found writing thus to Mr. Murray:--"Get from Ar Hobhouse, and send me, a proof of my Hints from Horace; it has now the nonum prematur in annum com Believe me, Moschus, (4) like that picture seems Poets and painters, as all artists (5) know, Fingentur species, ut nec pes, nec caput uni As plete for its production. I have a notion that, with some omissions of names and passages, it will do; and I could put my late observations for Pope amongst the notes. far as versification goes, it is good; and, in looking back at what I wrote about that period, I am astonished to see how little I have trained on. I wrote better then than now; but that comes of my having fallen into the atrocious bad taste of the times." On hearing, however, that, in Mr. Hobhouse's opinion, the iambics would require "a good deal of slashing" to suit the times, the notion of printing them was once more abandoned. They were first published, therefore, in 1831, seven years after the poet's death.-L. E. (2) The date of this Satire has given rise to Moore's astonishment that Byron, "as if in utter defiance of the genius loci,'" should have penned in such a place such a production, "impregnated as it is with London life from beginning to end."-P. E. (3) In an English newspaper, which finds its way abroad wherever there are Englishmen, I read an account of this dirty dauber's caricature of Mr. Has a "beast," and the consequent action, etc. The circumstance is, probably, too well known to require further comment.-[The gentleman here alluded to was Thomas Hope, the author of Anastasius, and one of the most munificent patrons of art this country ever possessed. Having, somehow, offended an unprincipled French painter, by name Dubost, that adventurer revenged himself by a picture called "Beauty and the Beast," in which Mr. Hope and his lady were represented according to the well-known fairy story. The picture had too much malice not to succeed; and, to the disgrace of John Bull, the exhibition of it is said to have fetched thirty pounds in a day. A brother of Mrs. Hope thrust his sword through the canvass; and M. Dubost had the conIsolation to get five pounds damages. The affair made much noise at the time, though Mr. Hope had not then placed himself on that seat of literary eminence which he afterwards attained. Probably, indeed, no man's reputation in the world was ever so suddenly and completely altered, as his was by the appearance of his magnificent romance. -L.E. (4) "Moschus."-In the original MS., "Hobhouse."-L. E. (5) "All artists."-Originally, "We scribblers."—L. E. A labour'd long exordium sometimes tends (Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends; And nonsense in a lofty note goes down, As pertness passes with a legal gown: Thus many a bard describes in pompous strain The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain: The groves of Granta, and her gothic halls, [walls; King's Coll., Cam's stream, stain'd windows, and old Or, in adventurous numbers, neatly aims To paint a rainbow, or-the river Thames. (1) You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine-But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign; You plan a vase-it dwindles to a pot, Then glide down Grub-street-fasting and forgot; Laugh'd into Lethe by some quaint Review, Whose wit is never troublesome till true. (2) In fine, to whatsoever you aspire, Let it at least be simple and entire. The greater portion of the rhyming tribe (Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe) Are led astray by some peculiar lure. I labour to be brief-become obscure; One falls while following elegance too fast; Another soars, inflated with bombast; Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly, He spins his subject to satiety: Absurdly varying, he at last engraves Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves! Unless your care's exact, your judgment nice, The flight from folly leads but into vice; None are complete, all wanting in some part, Like certain tailors, limited in art. For galligaskins Slowshears is your man; But coats must claim another artisan. (3) Now this to me, I own, seems much the same As Vulcan's feet to hear Apollo's frame; (4) Incœptis gravibus plerumque et magna professis In vitium ducit culpæ fuga, si caret arte. (1) "Where pure description held the place of sense."— Pope. (2) "This is pointed, and felicitously expressed." Moore. -L. E. (3) Mere common mortals were commonly content with one tailor and with one bill, but the more particular gentlemen found it impossible to confide their lower garments Or, with a fair complexion, to expose Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength, Let judgment teach him wisely to combine As well as William Pitt, and Walter Scott? As forests shed their foliage by degrees, Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, æquam Viribus; et versate diu, quid ferre recusent, Quid valeant humeri. Cui lecta potenter erit res, Nec facundia deseret hunc, nec lucidus ordo. Ordinis hæc virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor, Ut jam nunc dicat, jam nunc debentia dici, Pleraque differat, et præsens in tempus omittat; Hoc amet, hoc spernat promissi carminis auctor. In verbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendis, Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum Reddiderit junctura novum. Si forte necesse est Indiciis monstrare recentibns abdita rerum, Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis Continget; dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter. Et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si Græco fonte cadant, parce detorta, Quid autem Cæcilio, Plautoque dabit Romanus, ademptum Virgilio, Varioque? Ego cur, acquirere pauca Si possum, invideor; cum lingua Catonis et Enni Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum Nomina protulerit? Licuit, semperque licebit, Signatum præsente nota producere nomen. Ut silvæ foliis pronos mutantur in annos; Prima cadunt: ita verborum vetus interit ætas, to the makers of their body-clothes. I speak of the begin ning of 1809: what reform may have since taken place ( neither know, nor desire to know. (4) MS. "As one leg perfect, and the other lame."--L. E (5) Mr. Pitt was liberal in his additions to our parliamentary tongue; as may be seen in many publications, particularly the Edinburgh Review. 1 Though swamps subdued, and marshes drain'd, sustain The immortal wars which gods and angels wage, The slow sad stanza will correctly paint The lover's anguish, or the friend's complaint. But which deserves the laurel-rhyme or blank? Which holds on Helicon the higher rank? Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit. Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen. You doubt-see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick's dean. (2) Et juvenum ritu florent modo nata, vigentque. (1) Old hallads, old plays, and old women's stories, are at present in as much request as old wine or new speeches. In fact, this is the millennium of black letter: thanks to our liebers, Webers, and Scotts!-[There was considerable malice in thus putting Weber, a poor German hack, a mere amanuensis of Sir Walter Scott, between the two other uames.-L. E] (2) Mac Flecknoe, the Dunciad, and all Swift's lampoonIng ballads. Whatever their other works may be, these originated in personal feelings, and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of these satires eletates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the personal, character of the writers.-[For particulars of Dryden's feud with his successor in the laureateship. Shadwell, whom he has immortalised under the name of Mac Flecknoe, and also as Og, in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel, and for the literary squabbles in which Swift and Pope were engaged, the reader must turn to the lives and works of these three great writers. See also Mr. D'Israeli's painfully-interesting book on The Quarrels of Authors.-L. E.] (3) Like Dr. Johnson, Lord Byron maintained the excellence of rhyme over blank verse in English poetry. "Blank verse," he says, in his long-lost letter to the editor of Blackwood's Magazine, "unless in the drama, no one except Maton ever wrote who could rhyme. I am aware that Johnson has said, after some hesitation, that he could not prevail upon himself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer.' The opinions of that truly great man, whom, like Pope, it is the present fashion to decry, will ever be received by me Blank verse (3) is now, with one consent, allied To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side. Though mad Almanzor rhymed in Dryden's days, No sing-song hero rants in modern plays; While modest Comedy her verse foregoes For jest and pun (4) in very middling prose. Nor that our Bens or Beaumonts show the worse, Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse; But so Thalia pleases to appear, Poor virgin! damn'd some twenty times a-year! Whate'er the scene, let this advice have weight :- Where angry Townly (5) lifts his voice on high. To "hallooing Hotspur (6)" and the sceptred sire. "Tis not enough, ye bards, with all your art, To polish poems;-they must touch the heart. Where'er the scene be laid, whate'er the song, Still let it bear the hearer's soul along; Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primum, Descriptas servare vices operumque colores, Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto, with that deference which time will restore to him from all ; but, with all humility, I am not persuaded that the Paradise Lost would not have been more nobly conveyed to posterity, not perhaps in heroic couplets, although even they could sustain the subject, if well balanced, but in the stanza of Spenser, or of Tasso, or in the terza rima of Dante, which the powers of Milton could easily have grafted on our language. The Seasons of Thomson would have been better in rhyme, although still inferior to his Castle of Indolence; and Mr. Southey's Joan of Arc no worse."-L. E. (4) With all the vulgar applause and critical abhorrence of puns, they have Aristotle on their side; who permits them to orators, and gives them consequence by a grave disquisition.-["Cicero also," says Addison, "has sprinkled several of his works with them; and, in his book on Oratory, quotes abundance of sayings as pieces of wit, which, upon examination, prove arrant puns. But the age in which the pun chiefly flourished was in the reign of James the First, who was himself a tolerable punster, and made very few bishops or privy counsellors that had not some time or other signalised themselves by a clinch, or a conundrum. The sermons of Bishop Andrews, and the tragedies of Shakspeare, are full of them. The sinner was punned into repentance by the former; as, in the latter, nothing is more usual than to see a hero weeping and quibbling for a dozen lines together."-L. E.] (5) In Vanbrugh's comedy of the Provoked Husband.-L. E. (6) "And in his ear I'll halloo, Mortimer !"-1 Henry IV. Command your audience or to smile or weep, Whiche'er may please you-any thing but sleep. The poet claims our tears; but, by his leave, Before I shed them, let me see him grieve. If banish'd Romeo feign'd nor sigh nor tear, Lull'd by his languor, I should sleep or sneer. Sad words, no doubt, become a serious face, And men look angry in the proper place. At double meanings folks seem wondrous sly, And sentiment prescribes a pensive eye; For nature form'd at first the inward man, And actors copy nature-when they can. She bids the beating heart with rapture bound, Raised to the stars, or levell'd with the ground; And for expression's aid, 'tis said, or sung, She gave our mind's interpreter-the tongue, Who, worn with use, of late would fain dispense (At least in theatres) with common sense; O'erwhelm with sound the boxes, gallery, pit, And raise a laugh with any thing--but wit. To skilful writers it will much import, [court; Whence spring their scenes, from common life or Whether they seek applause by smile or tear, To draw a "Lying Valet," or a "Lear," A sage, or rakish youngster wild from school, A wandering "Peregrine," or plain "John Bull;" Vultum verba decent; iratum, plena minarum; (1) See the Rehearsal: "Johnson. Pray, Mr. Bayes, who is that Drawcansir? Bayes. Why, sir, a great hero, that frights his mistress, snubs up kings, baffles armies, and does what he will, without regard to numbers, good sense, or justice."—L.E. (2) "Difficile est proprie communia dicere."-- Madame Dacier, Madame de Sévigné, Boileau, and others, have left their dispute on the meaning of this passage in a tract considerably longer than the poem of Horace. It is printed at the close of the eleventh volume of Madame de Sévigne's Letters, edited by Grouvelle, Paris, 1806. Presuming that all who can construe may venture an opinion on such subjects, particularly as so many who can not have taken the same liberty, I should have held my "farthing candle" as awkwardly as another, had not my respect for the wits of Louis the Fourteenth's Augustan siècle induced me to subjoin these illustrious authorities. Ist, Boileau: "Il est difficile de traiter des sujets qui sont à la portée de tout le monde d'une manière qui vous les rende propres, ce qui s'appelle s'approprier un sujet par le tour qu'on y donne." 2dly, Batteux: "Mais il est bien difficile de donner des traits propres et individuels aux êtres purement possibles." 3dly, Dacier: "Il est difficile de traiter convenablement ces caractères que tout le monde peut inventer." Mde. de Sévigne's opinion and translation, consisting of some thirty pages, I omit, particularly as M. Grouvelle observes, "La chose est bien remarquable, aucune de ces diverses interprétations ne parait être la véritable." But, by way of All persons please when nature's voice prevails, Or follow common fame, or forge a plot: If some Drawcansir (1) you aspire to draw, Present him raving, and above all law: If female furies in your scheme are plann'd, Macbeth's fierce dame is ready to your hand; For tears and treachery, for good or evil, Constance, King Richard, Hamlet, and the Devil! But if a new design you dare essay, And freely wander from the beaten way, True to your characters, till all be past, Preserve consistency from first to last. "Tis hard to venture where our betters fail, Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale; And yet, perchance, 'tis wiser to prefer A hackney'd plot, than choose a new, and err; For you, young bard! whom luckless fate may lead To tremble on the nod of all who read, Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis. Si quid inexpertum scenæ committis, et andes Personam formare novam, servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet. Difficile est proprie communia dicere; (2) tuque Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus, Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus. Publica materies privati juris erit, si Nec circa vilem patulumque moraberis orbem; Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere fidus Interpres, nec desilies imitator in arctum, Unde pedem proferre pudor vetet, aut operis lex. Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor Cyclicus olim: comfort, it seems, fifty years afterwards, "Le lumineux Dumarsais" made his appearance, to set Horace on his legs again, "dissiper tous les nuages, et concilier tous les dissentimens ;" and some fifty years hence, somebody, still more luminous, will doubtless start up and demolish Dumarsais and his system on this weighty affair, as if he were no bet ter than Ptolemy and Tycho, or his comments of no more consequence than astronomical calculations on the present comet. I am happy to say, "la longueur de la dissertation" of M. D. prevents M. G. from saying any more on the matter. A better poet than Boileau, and at least as good a scholar as Sévigné, has said, "A little learning is a dangerous thing." And, by this comparison of comments, it may be perceived how a good deal may be rendered as perilous to the proprietors. [Dr. Johnson gave the interpretation thus :- He means that it is difficult to appropriate to particular persons qualities which are common to all mankind, as Homer has done."-"It seems to result from the whole dis cussion," says Mr. Croker, "that, in the ordinary meaning of the words, the passage is obscure, and that, to make sense, we must either alter the words, or assign to them an unusual interpretation. All commentators are agreed, by the help of the context, what the general meaning must be; ¦ but no one seems able verbum verbo reddere fidus inter pres.'" (Boswell, vol. iii. p. 438.) But, in our humble opinion, Boileau's translation is precisely that of this “fidus interpres."-L. E.] Ere your first score of cantos time unrolls, Of man's first disobedience and the fruit" *Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum." Die mihi, Musa, virum, captæ post tempora Troja, (1) About two years ago a young man, named Townsend, was announced by Mr. Cumberland" (in a review † since deceased) as being engaged in an epic poem to be entitled Armageddon. The plan and specimen promise much; but I hope neither to offend Mr. Townsend, nor his friends, by recommending to his attention the lines of Horace to which these rhymes allude. If Mr. Townsend succeeds in his undertaking, as there is reason to hope, how much will the world be indebted to Mr. Cumberland for bringing him befare the public! But, till that eventful day arrives, it may be doubted whether the premature display of his plan (subTime as the ideas confessedly are) has not,-by raising expretation too high, or diminishing curiosity, by developing his argument, rather incurred the hazard of injuring Mr. Townsend's future prospects. Mr. Cumberland (whose taleats I shall not depreciate by the humble tribute of my praise) and Mr. Townsend must not suppose me actuated by unworthy motives in this suggestion. I wish the author all the success he can wish himself, and shall be truly happy to see epic poetry weighed up from the bathos where it lies ken with Southey, Cottle, Cowley (Mrs. or Abraham), On the original MS. we find,-"This note was written" [at Athens before the author was apprised of Mr. Cumberland's death. The old littérateur died in May 1811, and had the honour tube buried in Westminster Abbey, and to be eulogised, while the y stood round the grave, in the following manly style by the en Dean, Dr. Vincent, his schoolfellow, and through life his friend: Good people! the person you see now deposited is Richard Cumberland, an author of no small merit: his writings were chiefly for the stage, but of strict moral tendency: they were not without faults, but they were not gross, abounding with oaths and libidinous exPions, as, I am shocked to observe, is the case of many of the rent day. He wrote as much as any one: few wrote better; and works will be held in the highest estimation, as long as the English language will be understood. He considered the theatre a hool for moral improvement, and his remains are truly worthy of aging with the illustrious dead which surro.id us. Read his subjects on divinity! there you will find the true Christian it of the man who trusted in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. May God forgive him his sins; and, at the resurrection of the just, ive him into everlasting glory!"-L. E. The London Review, set up in 1809, under Mr. Cumberland's the prospectus, about the distinguishing feature of the journal; having the writer's name affixed to the articles. This plan succeeded pretty well both in France and Germany, but has led uiterly as often as it has been tried in this country. It is dics, however, to go into any speculation on the principle here; the London Review, whether sent into the world with or without es, must soon have died of the original disease of dulness.-L. E. And truth and fiction with such art compounds, We know not where to fix their several bounds. If you would please the public, deign to hear What soothes the many-headed monster's ear; If your heart triumph when the hands of all Applaud in thunder at the curtain's fall, Deserve those plaudits-study nature's page, And sketch the striking traits of every age; While varying man and varying years unfold Life's little tale, so oft, so vainly told. Observe his simple childhood's dawning days, His pranks, his prate, his playmates, and his plays; Till time at length the mannish tyro weans, And prurient vice outstrips his tardy teens! Behold him Freshman! forced no more to groan O'er Virgil's (3) devilish verses and his own; Desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit: Tu quid ego, et populus mecum desideret, audi. Ogilvy, Wilkie, Pye, and all the "dull of past and present days." Even if he is not a Milton, he may be better than Blackmore; if not a Homer, an Antimachus. I should deem myself presumptuous, as a young man, in offering advice, were it not addressed to one still younger. Mr. Townsend has the greatest difficulties to encounter: but in conquering them he will find employment; in having conquered them, his reward. I know too well "the scribbler's scoff, the critic's contumely ;" and I am afraid time will teach Mr. Townsend to know them better. Those who succeed, and those who do not, must bear this alike, and it is hard to say which have most of it. I trust that Mr. Townsend's share will be from envy;-he will soon know mankind well enough not to attribute this expression to malice. [This was penned at Athens. On his return to England Lord B. wrote to a friend :-"There is a sucking epic poet at Granta, a Mr. Townsend, protégé of the late Cumberland. Did you ever hear of him and his Armageddon? I think his plan (the man I don't know) borders on the sublime; though, perhaps, the anticipation of the Last Day' is a little too daring: at least, it looks like telling the Almighty what he is to do; and might remind an ill-natured person of the line And fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' But I don't mean to cavil-only other folks will; and he may bring all the lambs of Jacob Behmen about his ears. However, I hope he will bring it to a conclusion, though Milton is in his way."-All Lord Byron's anticipations, with regard to this poem, were realised to the very letter. To gratify the curiosity which had been excited, Mr. Townsend, in I8I5, was induced to publish eight out of the twelve books of which it was to consist. "In the benevolence of his heart, Mr. Cumberland," he says, "bestowed praise on me, certainly too abundantly and prematurely; but I hope that any deficiency on my part may be imputed to the true cause my own inability to support a subject, under which the greatest mental powers must inevitably sink. My talents were neither equal to my own ambition, nor his zeal to serve me."-L. E.] (2) "There is more of poetry in these verses upon Milton than in any other passage throughout the paraphrase." Moore.-L. E. (3) Harvey, the circulator of the circulation of the blood, used to fling away Virgil in his ecstasy of admiration, and say, "the book had a devil." Now, such a character as I am copying would probably fling it away also, but rather |