Lives of the Poets | Page 7

Love Verses, Occasional
Poems, "Alma," and "Solomon."
His tales have obtained general approbation, being written with great
familiarity and great sprightliness; the language is easy, but seldom
gross, and the numbers smooth, without appearance of care. Of these

tales there are only four: "The Ladle," which is
introduced by a
preface, neither necessary nor pleasing, neither grave nor merry. "Paulo
Purganti," which has likewise a preface, but of more value than the tale.
"Hans Carvel," not over-decent; and "Protogenes and Apelles," an old
story mingled, by an
affectation not disagreeable, with modern
images. "The Young Gentleman in Love" has hardly a just claim to the
title of a tale. I know not whether he be the original author of any tale
which he has given us. The adventure of Hans Carvel has passed
through many successions of merry wits, for it is to be found in
Ariosto's "Satires," and is perhaps yet older. But the merit of such
stories is the art of telling them.
In his amorous effusions he is less happy; for they are not dictated by
nature or by passion, and have neither gallantry nor tenderness. They
have the coldness of Cowley, without his wit, the dull exercises of a
skilful versifier, resolved at all adventures to write something about
Chloe, and trying to be amorous by dint of study. His fictions, therefore,
are mythological. Venus, after the example of the Greek epigram, asks
when she was seen NAKED AND BATHING. Then Cupid is
MISTAKEN; then Cupid is DISARMED; then he loses his darts to
Ganymede; then Jupiter sends him a summons by Mercury. Then Chloe
goes a-hunting with an IVORY QUIVER GRACEFUL AT HER SIDE;
Diana mistakes her for one of her nymphs, and Cupid laughs at the
blunder. All this is surely despicable; and even when he tries to act the
lover without the help of gods or goddesses, his thoughts are
unaffecting or remote. He talks not "like a man of this world."
The greatest of all his amorous essays is "Henry and Emma," a dull and
tedious dialogue, which excites neither esteem for the man nor
tenderness for the woman. The example of Emma, who resolves to
follow an outlawed murderer wherever fear and guilt shall drive him,
deserves no imitation; and the experiment by which Henry tries the
lady's constancy is such as must end either in infamy to her or in
disappointment to himself.
His occasional poems necessarily lost part of their value, as their
occasions, being less remembered, raised less emotion, Some of them,

however, are preserved by their inherent excellence. The burlesque of
Boileau's ode on Namur has in some parts such airiness and levity as
will always procure it readers, even among those who cannot compare
it with the original. The epistle to Boileau is not so happy. The "Poems
to the King," are now perused only by young students, who read merely
that they may learn to write; and of the "Carmen Seculare," I cannot but
suspect that I might praise or censure it by caprice without danger of
detection; for who can be supposed to have laboured through it? Yet
the time has been when this neglected work was so popular that it was
translated into Latin by no common master.
His poem on the Battle of Ramillies is necessarily tedious by the form
of the stanza. An uniform mass of ten lines thirty-five times repeated,
inconsequential and slightly connected, must weary both the ear and
the understanding. His imitation of Spenser, which consists principally
in I_ WEEN and _I WEET, without exclusion of later modes of speech,
makes his poem neither ancient nor modern. His mention of Mars and
Bellona, and his comparison of Marlborough to the eagle that bears the
thunder of Jupiter, are all puerile and unaffecting; and yet more
despicable is the long tale told by Louis in his despair of Brute and
Troynovante, and the teeth of Cadmus, with his similes of the raven
and eagle and wolf and lion. By the help of such easy fictions and
vulgar topics, without acquaintance with life, and without knowledge
of art or nature, a poem of any length, cold and lifeless like this, may be
easily written on any subject.
In his epilogues to Phaedra and to Lucius he is very happily facetious;
but in the prologue before the queen the pedant has found his way with
Minerva, Perseus, and Andromeda.
His epigrams and lighter pieces are, like those of others, sometimes
elegant, sometimes trifling, and sometimes dull; among the best are the
"Chamelion" and the epitaph on John and Joan.
Scarcely any one of our poets has written so much and translated so
little: the version of Callimachus is sufficiently licentious; the
paraphrase on St. Paul's Exhortation to Charity is eminently beautiful.

"Alma" is written in professed