Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 14

Akenside ill.u.s.trates the native impulse of genius by a simile of Memnon's marble statue, sounding its lyre at the touch of the sun:

For as old Memnon's image, long renown'd By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch Of t.i.tan's ray, with each repulsive string Consenting, sounded through the warbling air Unbidden strains; even so did nature's hand, &c.

It is remarkable that the same image, which does not appear obvious enough to have been the common inheritance of poets, is precisely used by old Regnier, the first French satirist, in the dedication of his Satires to the French king. Louis XIV. supplies the place of nature to the courtly satirist. These are his words:--"On lit qu'en Ethiope il y avoit une statue qui rendoit un son harmonieux, toutes les fois que le soleil levant la regardoit. Ce meme miracle, Sire, avez vous fait en moi, qui touche de l'astre de Votre Majeste, ai recu la voix et la parole."

In that sublime pa.s.sage in "Pope's Essay on Man," Epist. i. v. 237, beginning,

Vast chain of being! which from G.o.d began,

and proceeds to

From nature's chain whatever link you strike, Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

Pope seems to have caught the idea and image from Waller, whose last verse is as fine as any in the "Essay on Man:"--

The chain that's fixed to the throne of Jove, On which the fabric of our world depends, One link dissolv'd, the whole creation ends.

_Of the Danger his Majesty escaped_, &c. v. 168.

It has been observed by Thyer, that Milton borrowed the expression _imbrowned_ and _brown_, which he applies to the evening shade, from the Italian. See Thyer's elegant note in B. iv., v. 246:

----And where the unpierced shade _Imbrowned_ the noon tide bowers.

And B. ix., v. 1086:

---- Where highest Woods impenetrable To sun or star-light, spread their umbrage broad, And _brown as evening_.

_Fa l'imbruno_ is an expression used by the Italians to denote the approach of the evening. Boiardo, Ariosto and Ta.s.so, have made a very picturesque use of this term, noticed by Thyer. I doubt if it be applicable to our colder climate; but Thomson appears to have been struck by the fine effect it produces in poetical landscape; for he has

----With quickened step _Brown night_ retires.

_Summer_, v. 51.

If the epithet be true, it cannot be more appropriately applied than in the season he describes, which most resembles the genial clime with the deep serenity of an Italian heaven. Milton in Italy had experienced the _brown evening_, but it may be suspected that Thomson only recollected the language of the poet.

The same observation may be made on two other poetical epithets. I shall notice the epithet "LAUGHING" applied to inanimate objects; and "PURPLE"

to beautiful objects."

The natives of Italy and the softer climates receive emotions from the view of their WATERS in the SPRING not equally experienced in the British roughness of our skies. The fluency and softness of the water are thus described by Lucretius:--

----Tibi suaveis Daedala tellus Submitt.i.t flores: _tibi_ RIDENT _aequora ponti_.

Inelegantly rendered by Creech,

The roughest sea puts on smooth looks, and SMILES.

Dryden more happily,

The ocean SMILES, and smooths her wavy breast.

But Metastasio has copied Lucretius:--

A te fioriscono Gli erbosi prat: E i flutti RIDONO Nel mar placati.

It merits observation, that the _Northern Poets_ could not exalt their imagination higher than that the water SMILED, while the modern Italian, having before his eyes _a different Spring_, found no difficulty in agreeing with the ancients, that the waves LAUGHED. Modern poetry has made a very free use of the animating epithet LAUGHING. Gray has LAUGHING FLOWERS: and Langhorne in two beautiful lines personifies Flora:--

Where Tweed's soft banks in liberal beauty lie, And Flora LAUGHS beneath an azure sky.

Sir William Jones, in the spirit of Oriental poetry, has "the LAUGHING AIR." Dryden has employed this epithet boldly in the delightful lines, almost entirely borrowed from his original, Chaucer:--

The morning lark, the messenger of day, Saluted in her song the morning gray; And soon the sun arose, with beams so bright, That all THE HORIZON LAUGHED to see the joyous sight.

_Palamon and Arcite_, B. ii.[25]

It is extremely difficult to conceive what the ancients precisely meant by the word _purpureus_. They seem to have designed by it anything BRIGHT and BEAUTIFUL. A cla.s.sical friend has furnished me with numerous significations of this word which are very contradictory. Albinova.n.u.s, in his elegy on Livia, mentions _Nivem purpureum_. Catullus, _Quercus ramos purpureos_. Horace, _Purpureo bibet ore nectar_, and somewhere mentions _Olores purpureos_. Virgil has _Purpuream vomit ille animam_; and Homer calls the sea _purple_, and gives it in some other book the same epithet, when in a storm.

The general idea, however, has been fondly adopted by the finest writers in Europe. The PURPLE of the ancients is not known to us. What idea, therefore, have the moderns affixed to it? Addison, in his Vision of the Temple of Fame, describes the country as "being covered with a kind of PURPLE LIGHT." Gray's beautiful line is well known:--

The bloom of young desire and _purple light_ of love.

And Ta.s.so, in describing his hero G.o.dfrey, says, Heaven

Gli empie d'onor la faccia, e vi riduce Di Giovinezza _il bel purpureo lume_.

Both Gray and Ta.s.so copied Virgil, where Venus gives to her son aeneas--

----_Lumenque_ Juventae _Purpureum_.

Dryden has omitted the _purple light_ in his version, nor is it given by Pitt; but Dryden expresses the general idea by

---- With hands divine, Had formed his curling locks and _made his temples s.h.i.+ne_, And given his rolling eys a _sparkling grace_.

It is probable that Milton has given us his idea of what was meant by _this purple light_, when applied to the human countenance, in the felicitous expression of

CELESTIAL ROSY-RED.

Gray appears to me to be indebted to Milton for a hint for the opening of his Elegy: as in the first line he had Dante and Milton in his mind, he perhaps might also in the following pa.s.sage have recollected a congenial one in Comus, which he altered. Milton, describing the evening, marks it out by

---- What time the _laboured ox_ In his loose traces from the furrow came, And the _swinkt hedger_ at his supper sat.

Gray has

The _lowing herd_ wind slowly o'er the lea, The _ploughman_ homeward plods his weary way.

Warton has made an observation on this pa.s.sage in Comus; and observes further that it is a _cla.s.sical_ circ.u.mstance, but not a _natural_ one, in an _English landscape_, for our ploughmen quit their work at noon. I think, therefore, the imitation is still more evident; and as Warton observes, both Gray and Milton copied here from books, and not from life.

There are three great poets who have given us a similar incident.

Dryden introduces the highly finished picture of the _hare_ in his Annus Mirabilis:--

_Stanza_ 131.