תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

And PRIAM eke, in vain how he did run

To arms, whom PYRRHUS with despite hath done
To cruel death, and bath'd him in the baign

Of his fon's blood before the altar flain.

But how can I defcrive the doleful fight
That in the shield fo lively fair did shine ?
Sith in this world, I think, was never wight
Could have fet forth the half not half fo fine:
I can no more, but tell how there is seen
Fair ILIUM fall in burning red gledes down,

And, from the foil, great Troy, NEPTUNUS' town.

These shadowy inhabitants of hell-gate are conceived with the vigour of a creative imagination, and described with great force of expreffion. They are delineated with that fulness of proportion, that invention of picturefque attributes, distinctness, animation, and amplitude, of which Spenfer is commonly fupposed to have given the first specimens in our language, and which are characteristical of his poetry. We may venture to pronounce that Spenfer, at least, caught his manner of designing allegorical perfonages from this model, which so greatly enlarged the former narrow bounds of our ideal imagery, as that it may justly be deemed an original in that style of painting. For we must not forget, that it is to this INDUCTION that Spenfer alludes, in a fonnet prefixed to his Pastorals, in 1579, addreffed To the right honourable THE LORD OF BUCKHURST, one of her maiefties priuie councell.

In vaine I thinke, right honourable lord,
By this rude rime to memorize thy name,
Whose learned Mufe hath writ her owne record

In golden verfe, worthy immortal fame.

[blocks in formation]

Thou much more fit, were leifure for the fame,
Thy gracious foveraignes prayfes to compile,
And her imperiall majeftie to frame

In loftie numbers and heroick stile.

The readers of the FAERIE QUEENE will eafily point out many particular paffages which Sackville's INDUCTION. fuggested to Spenfer.

From this fcene SORROW, who is well known to Charon, and to Cerberus the hideous bound of hell, leads the poet over the loathfome lake of rude Acheron, to the dominions of Pluto, which are described in numbers too beautiful to have been relished by his cotemporaries, or equalled by his fucceffors.

Thence come we to the horrour and the hell,
The large great kyngdomes, and the dreadful raygne
Of Pluto in his trone where he dyd dwell,
The wide waste places, and the hugie playne;
The waylinges, fhrykes, and fundry forts of payne,
The fyghes, the fobbes, the depe and deadly groane,
Earth, ayer, and all refounding playnt and moane.

Thence did we paffe the threefold emperie

To the utmost boundes where Rhadamanthus raignes,
Where proud folke waile their wofull miferie;
Where dreadfull din of thousand dragging chaines,
And baleful shriekes of ghofts in deadly paines

The two next flanzas are not in the first edition, of 1559. But instead of them, the following ftanza.

Here pul'd the babes, and here the maids. unwed

With folded hands their forry chance be-. wayl'd;

Here wept the guiltlefs Slain, and lovers

dead

That flew themfelves when nothing else avayl'd.

A thoufand forts of forrows here that wayl'd

With fighs, and teares, fobs, fhrieks, and all yfere,

That, O alas! it was a hell to here, &c.

Torturd

f

Torturd eternally are heard moft brim
Through filent shades of night fo darke and dim.

From hence upon our way we forward paffe,
And through the groves and uncoth pathes we goe,
Which leade unto the Cyclops walles of brasse :
And where that mayne broad flood for
broad flood for aye doth floe,
Which parts the gladsome fields from place of woe:
Whence none shall ever paffe t' Elizium plaine,
Or from Elizium ever turne againe.

Here they are furrounded by a troop of men, the most in armes bedight, who met an untimely death, and of whofe destiny, whether they were fentenced to eternal night or to blissfull peace, it

was uncertain.

Loe here, quoth SORROWE, Princes of renowne
That whilom fate on top of Fortune's wheele,
Now laid full low, like wretches whurled downe

Even with one frowne, that staid but with a smile, &c.

They pafs in order before SORROW and the poet. The first is Henry duke of Buckingham, a principal inftrument of king Richard the third.

Then first came Henry duke of Buckingham,

His cloake of blacke, all pild, and quite forlorne,
Wringing his handes, and Fortune oft doth blame,
Which of a duke hath made him now her skorne;
With gaftly lokes, as one in maner lorne,

Oft fpred his armes, stretcht handes he joynes as fast,
With rufull cheere and vapored eyes upcast.

Breme, i. e. cruel,

[ocr errors]

His cloake he rent, his manly breast he beat;
His hair al torne, about the place it layne:
My heart fo molt to see his grief so great,
As feelingly, methought, it dropt away:
His eyes they whurled about withouten staye :
With ftormy fyghes the place did so complayne,
As if his hart at eche had burst in twayne.

Thryse he began to tell his doleful tale,
And thryfe the fyghes did fwalowe up his voyse;
At eche of whiche he fhryked fo withale,
As though the heavens ryved with the noyse:
Til at the last recovering his voyse;

Supping the teares that all his breast beraynde
On cruell Fortune weping thus he playnde.

Nothing more fully illuftrates and afcertains the respective merits and genius of different poets, than a juxtaposition of their performances on fimilar fubjects. Having examined at large Sackville's Defcent into Hell, for the fake of throwing a ftill ftronger light on his manner of treating a fiction which gives fo large a scope to fancy, I shall employ the remainder of this Section in setting before my reader a general view of Dante's Italian poem, entitled COMMEDIA, containing a description of Hell, Paradise, and Purgatory, and written about the year 1310. In the mean time, I prefume that most of readers will recollect and apply the fixth Book of Virgil: to which, however, it may be neceffary to refer occafionally.

my

Although I have before infinuated that Dante has in this poem used the ghost of Virgil for a mystagogue, in imitation of Tully, who in the SOMNIUM Scipionis fuppofes Scipio to have shewn the other world to his ancestor Africanus, yet at the fame time in the invention of his introduction, he seems to have had an eye on the exordium of an old forgotten Florentine

• Melted:

poem

poem called TESORETTO, written in Frottola, or a fhort irregular measure, exhibiting a cyclopede of theoretic and practic philofophy, and compofed by his preceptor Brunetto Latini about the year 1270". Brunetto fuppofes himself loft in a wood, at the foot of a mountain covered with animals, flowers, plants, and fruits of every species, and subject to the fupreme command of a wonderful Lady, whom he thus describes. "Her head touched the heavens, which ferved at once "for a veil and an ornament. The fky grew dark or ferene " at her voice, and her arms extended to the extremities of "the earth'." This bold perfonification, one of the earliest of the rude ages of poetry, is NATURE. She converses with the poet, and describes the creation of the world. She enters upon a most unphilofophical and indeed unpoetical detail of the physical system: developes the head of man, and points out the feat of intelligence and of memory. From phyfics she proceeds to morals: but her principles are here confined to theology and the laws of the church, which she couches in technical rhymes *.

Dante, like his master Brunetto, is bewildered in an unfrequented foreft. He attempts to climb a mountain, whose fummit is illuminated by the rifing fun. A furious leopard, pressed by hunger, and a lion, at whofe afpect the air is affrighted, accompanied by a fhe-wolf, oppofe his progrefs; and force him

See fupr. vol. ii. 219.
See fupr. vol. ii. 263.

* Brunetto's TESORETTO was abftracted by himself from his larger profe work on the same subject, written in old French and never printed, entitled TESORO. See fupr. vol. ii. 116. 222. And HIST. ACAD. INSCRIPT. tom. vii. 296. feq. The TESORO was afterwards tranflated into Italian by one Bono Giamboni, and printed at Trevifa, viz. "IL TESORO di Meffer Bru"netto Latino, Fiorentino, Precettore del "divino poeta Dante: nel qual fi tratta "di tutte le cofe che a mortali fe appar"tengeno. In Trivifa, 1474. fol. After a table of chapters is another title, "Qui "inchomincia el Teforo di S. Brunetto

"Latino di firenze: e parla del nafcimen"to e della natura di tutte le cofe." It was printed again at Venice, by Marchio Seffa, 1533. octavo. Mabillon feems to have confounded this Italian tranflation with the French original. IT. ITALIC. p. 169. See alfo Salviati, AVERTIS. DECAM. ii. xii. Dante introduces Brunetto in the fifteenth Canto of the INFERNO: and after the colophon of the firft edition of the Italian TESORO abovementioned, is this infertion. Rifpofta di Dante a Brunetto "Latino ritrovado da lui nel quintodeci"mo canto nel fuo inferno." The TESORETTO or Little Treasure, mentioned above in the text, has been printed, but is exceedingly fcarce. to

« הקודםהמשך »