Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

POEMA

CI. V. JOANNIS PASSERATII,

Regii in Academia Parisiensi Professoris,

AD ORNATISSIMUM VIRUM ERRICUM MEMMIUM. Janus adest, festæ poscunt sua dona Kalendæ, Munus abest festis quod possim offerre Kalendis. Siccine Castalius nobis exaruit humor? Usque adeo ingenii nostri est exhausta facultas, Immunem ut videat redeuntis janitor anni? Quod nusquam est, potius nova per vestigia quæram. Ecce autem partes dum sese versat in omnes Invenit mea Musa nihil, ne despice munus. Nam nihil est gemmis, nihil est pretiosius auro. Huc animum, huc igitur vultus adverte benignos: Res nova narratur quæ nulli audita priorum, Ausonii et Graii dixerunt cætera vates, Ausoniæ indictum nihil est Græcæque Camoenæ. E coelo quacunque Ceres sua prospicit arva, Aut genitor liquidis orbem complectitur ulnis Oceanus, nihil interitus et originis expers. Immortale nihil, nihil omni parte beatum. Quod si hinc majestas et vis divina probatur, Num quid honore deum, num quid dignabimur aris? Conspectu lucis nihil est jucundius almæ, Vere nihil, nihil irriguo formosius horto, Floridius pratis, Zephyri clementius aura; In bello sanctum nihil est, Martisque tumultu: Justum in pace nihil, nihil est in fœdere tutum. Felix cui nihil est, (fuerant hæc vota Tibullo) Non timet insidias: fures, incendia temnit: Solicitas sequitur nullo sub judice lites. Ille ipse invictis qui subjicit omnia fatis Zenonis sapiens, nihil admiratur et optat. Socraticique gregis fuit ista scientia quondam, Scire nihil, studio cui nunc incumbitur uni. Nec quicquam in ludo mavult didicisse juventus,

Ad magnas quia ducit opes, et culmen honorum.
Nosce nihil, nosces fertur quod Pythagoreæ
Grano hærere fabæ, cui vox adjuncta negantis.
Multi Mercurio freti duce viscera terræ
Pura liquefaciunt simul, et patrimonia miscent,
Arcano instantes operi, et carbonibus atris,
Qui tandem exhausti damnis, fractique labore,
Inveniunt atque inventum nihil usque requirunt.
Hoc dimetiri non ulla decempeda possit:
Nec numeret Libycæ numerum qui callet arena:
Et Phoebo ignotum nihil est, nihil altius astris.
Tuque, tibi licet eximium sit mentis acumen,
Omnein in naturam penetrans, et in abdita rerum,
Pace tua, Memmi, nihil ignorare videris.
Sole tamen nihil est, a puro clarius igne.
Tange nikil, dicesque nihil sine corpore tangi.
Cerne nihil, cerni dices nihil absque colore.
Surdum audit loquiturque nihil sine voce, volatque
Absque ope pennarum, et graditur sine cruribus ullis
Ahsque loco motuque nihil per inane vagatur.
Humano generi utilius nihil arte medendi.
Ne rhombos, igitur, neu Thessala murmura tentet
Idalia vacuum trajectus arundine pectus,
Neu legat Idæo Dictæum in vertice gramen.
Vulneribus sævi nihil auxiliatur amoris.
Vexerit et quemvis trans moestas portitor undas,
Ad superos imo nihil hunc revocabit ab orco.
Inferni nihil inflectit præcordia regis.
Parcarumque colos, et inexorabile pensum.
Obruta Phlegrais campis Titania pubes
Fulmineo sensit nihil esse potentius ictu :
Forrigitur magni nihil extra moenia mundi:
Diique nihil metuunt. Quid longo carmine plura
Commemorem? Virtute nihil præstantius ipsa,
Splendidius nihil est; nihil est Jove denique majus.
Sed tempus finem argutis imponere nugis
Ne tibi si multa laudem mea carmina charta,
De nihilo nihili pariant fastidia versus.

wwwwwww

ROSCOMMON.

wwwwwmanw

WENTWORTH D LLON, Earl of Roscommon, was the son of James Dillon, and Elizabeth Wentworth, sister to the Earl of Strafford. He was born in Ireland* during the lieutenancy of Strafford, who being both his uncle and his godfather, gave him his own surname. His father, the third Earl of Roscommon, had been converted by Usher to the protestant religion; †

The Biog. Britan. says, probably about the year 1632; but this is inconsistent with the date of Strafford's viceroyalty in the following page.-C.

+ It was his grandfather, Sir Robert Dillon, second Earl of Roscommon, who was converted from popery, and his conversion is recited in the patent of Sir James, the first Earl of Roscommon, as one of the grounds of his creation.-MALONE..

and when the popish rebellion broke out, Strafford thinking the family in great danger from the fury of the Irish, sent for his godson, and placed him at his own seat in Yorkshire, where he was instructed in Latin; which he learned so as to write it with purity and elegance, though he was never able to retain the rules of grammar.

Such is the account given by Mr. Fenton, from whose notes on Waller most of this account must be borrowed, though I know not The inwhether all that he relates is certain. structor whom he assigns to Roscommon, is one Dr. Hall, by whom he cannot mean the famous Hall, then an old man and a bishop.

When the storm broke out upon Strafford,

[ocr errors]

his house was a shelter no longer; and Dillon, by the advice of Usher, was sent to Caen, where the protestants had then a university, and continued his studies under Bochart.

Young Dillon, who was sent to study under Bochart, and who is represented as having already made great proficiency in literature, could not be more than nine years old. Strafford went to govern Ireland in 1633, and was put to death eight years afterwards. That he was sent to Caen is certain; that he was a great scholar may be doubted.

At Caen he is said to have had some preternatural intelligence of his father's death.

[ocr errors]

"The Lord Roscommon, being a boy of ten fears of age, at Caen, in Normandy, one day was, as it were, madly extravagant in playing, leaping, getting over the tables, boards, &c. He was wont to be sober enough; they said, God grant this bodes no ill-luck to him! In the heat of this extravagant fit he cries out, My father is dead!' A fortnight after, news came from Ireland that his father was dead. This account I had from Mr. Knolles, who was his governor, and then with him since secretary to the Earl of Strafford; and I have heard his Lordship's relations confirm the same."-AUBREY'S MIS

CELLANY.

tain of the band of pensioners, and learned so much of the dissoluteness of the court, that he addicted himself immoderately to gaming, by which he was engaged in frequent quarrels, and which undoubtedly brought upon him its usual concomitants, extravagance and distress.

After some time, a dispute about part of his estate forced him into Ireland, where he was made by the Duke of Ormond captain of the guards, and met with an adventure thus related by Fenton:

"He was at Dublin as much as ever distempered with the same fatal affection for play, which engaged him in one adventure that well deserves to be related. As he returned to his lodgings from a gaming-table, he was attacked in the dark by three ruffians, who were employed to assassinate him. The Earl defended himself with so much resolution, that he despatched one of the aggressors: whilst a gentleman, accidentally passing that way, interposed, and disarmed another: the third secured himself by flight. This generous assistant was a disbanded officer, of a good family and fair reputation; who, by what we call the partiality of fortune, to avoid censuring the iniquities of the times, wanted even a plain suit of clothes to make a decent appearance at the Castle. But his Lordship, on this occasion, presenting him to the Duke of Ormond, with great importunity prevailed with his Grace, that he might resign his post of captain of the guards to his friend; which for about three years the gentleman en

the commission to his generous benefactor."

When he had finished his business, he returned to London: was made master of the horse to the Dutchess of York; and married the Lady Frances, daughter to the Earl of Burlington, and widow of Colonel Courteney.*

The present age is very little inclined to favour any accounts of this kind, nor will the name of Aubrey much recommend it to credit; | it ought not, however, to be omitted, because better evidence of a fact cannot easily be found than is here offered; and it must be by preserv-joyed, and, upon his death, the Duke returned ing such relations that we may at last judge how much they are to be regarded. If we stay to examine this account, we shall see difficulties on both sides; here is the relation of a fact given by a man who had no interest to deceive, and who could not be deceived himself; and here is, on the other hand, a miracle which produces no He now busied his mind with literary proeffect; the order of nature is interrupted, to dis-jects, and formed the plan for a society for refincover not a future but only a distant event, the knowledge of which is of no use to him to whom it is revealed. Between these difficulties what way shall be found? Is reason or testimony to be rejected? I believe what Osborne says of an appearance of sanctity may be applied to such impulses or anticipations as this: "Do not wholly slight them, because they may be true; but do not wholly trust them, because they may be false."

The state both of England and Ireland was at this time such, that he who was absent from either country had very little temptation to return; and therefore Roscommon, when he left Caen, travelled into Italy, and amused himself with its antiquities, and particularly with medals, in which he acquired uncommon skill.

At the Restoration, with the other friends of monarchy, he came to England, was made cap

ing our language and fixing its standard; "in imitation,” says Fenton, “ of those learned and polite societies with which he had been acquainted abroad." In this design his friend Dryden is said to have assisted him.

The same design, it is well known, was revived by Dr. Swift in the ministry of Oxford; but it has never since been publicly mentioned, though at that time great expectations were formed by some of its establishment and its effects. Such a society might, perhaps, without much difficulty, be collected; but that it would produce what is expected from it may be doubted.

*He was married to Lady Frances Boyle, in April, 1662. By this lady he had no issue. He married secondly, 10th Nov. 1674, Isabella, daughter of Matthew Boynton, of Barmston, in Yorkshire.—MALONE.

The Italian academy seems to have obtained its end. The language was refined, and so fixed that it has changed but little. The French academy thought that they refined their language, and doubtless thought rightly; but the event has not shown that they fixed it; for the French of the present time is very different from that of the last century.

In this country an academy could be expected to do but little. If an academician's place were profitable, it would be given by interest; if attendance were gratuitous, it would be rarely paid, and no man would endure the least disgust. Unanimity is impossible, and debate would separate the assembly.

But suppose the philological decree made and promulgated, what would be its authority? In absolute governments, there is sometimes a general reverence paid to all that has the sanction of power, and the countenance of greatness. How little this is the state of our country needs not be told. We live in an age in which it is a kind of public sport to refuse all respect that cannot be enforced. The edicts of an English academy would probably be read by many, only that they might be sure to disobey them.

That our language is in perpetual danger of corruption cannot be denied; but what prevention can be found? The present manners of the nation would deride authority; and therefore nothing is left but that every writer should criticise himself.

All hopes of new literary institutions were quickly suppressed by the contentious turbulence of King James's reign; and Roscommon, foreseeing that some violent concussion of the state was at hand, purposed to retire to Rome, alleging, that "it was best to sit near the chimney when the chamber smoked;" a sentence, of which the application seems not very clear.

His departure was delayed by the gout; and he was so impatient either of hinderance or of pain, that he submitted himself to a French empiric, who is said to have repelled the disease into his bowels.

At the moment in which he expired, he uttered, with an energy of voice that expressed the most fervent devotion, two lines of his own version of "Dies Iræ:

My God, my Father, and my Friend, Do not forsake me in my end.

disposed in the most regular and elegant order. His imagination might have probably been more fruitful and sprightly, if his judgment had been less severe. But that severity (delivered in a masculine, clear, succinct style) contributed to make him so eminent in the didactical manner, that no man, with justice, can affirm he was ever equalled by any of our nation, without confessing at the same time that he is inferior to none. In some other kinds of writing his genius seems to have wanted fire to attain the point of perfection; but who can attain it ?"

From this account of the riches of his mind, who would not imagine that they had been displayed in large volumes and numerous performances? Who would not, after the perusal of this character, be surprised to find that all the proofs of this genius, and knowledge, and judgment, are not sufficient to form a single book, or to appear otherwise than in conjunction with the works of some other writer of the same petty size?* But thus it is that characters are written: we know somewhat, and we imagine the rest. The observation, that his imagination would probably have been more fruitful and sprightly, if his judgment had been less severe, may be answered by a remarker somewhat inclined to cavil, by a contrary supposition, that his judgment would probably have been less severe, if his imagination had been more fruitful. It is ridiculous to oppose judgment to imagination; for it does not appear that men have necessarily less of one as they have more of the other.

We must allow of Roscommon, what Fenton has not mentioned so distinctly as he ought, and what is yet very much to his honour, that he is, perhaps, the only correct writer in verse before Addison: and that, if there are not so many or so great beauties in his compositions as in those of some contemporaries, there are at least fewer faults. Nor is this his highest praise; for Mr. Pope has celebrated him as the only moral writer of King Charles's reign:

Unhappy Dryden ! in all Charles's days,
Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays.

His great work is his "Essay on Translated

*They were published, together with those of Duke, in an octavo volume, in 1717. The editor,

He died in 1684, and was buried with great whoever he was, professes to have taken great care pomp in Westminster Abbey.

to procure and insert all of his Lordship's poems that are truly genuine. The truth of this assertion is

His poetical character is given by Mr. Fen- flatly denied by the author of an account of Mr. John

ton:

"In his writings," says Fenton, "we view the image of a mind which was naturally serious and solid; richly furnished and adorned with all the ornaments of learning, unaffectedly

Pomfret, prefixed to his remains; who asserts, that the Prospect of Death was written by that person many years after Lord Roscommon's decease; as, also, that the paraphrase of the Prayer of Jeremy was written by a gentleman of the name of Southcourt, living in the year 1724.-H.

Verse;" of which Dryden writes thus in his not less praise than it deserves. preface to his "Miscellanies:"

"It was my Lord Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse,' says Dryden, "which made me uneasy, till I tried whether or no I was capable of following his rules, and of reducing the speculation into practice. For many a fair precept in poetry is like a seeming demonstration in mathematics, very specious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanic operation. I think I have generally observed his instructions: I am sure my reason is sufficiently convinced both of their truth and usefulness; which, in other words, is to confess no less a vanity than to pretend that I have, at least, in some places, made examples to his rules."

This declaration of Dryden will, I am afraid, be found little inore than one of those cursory civilities which one author pays to another; for when the sum of Lord Roscommon's precepts is collected, it will not be easy to discover how they can qualify their reader for a better performance of translation than might have been attained by his own reflections.

He that can abstract his mind from the èlegance of the poetry, and confine it to the sense of the precepts, will find no other direction than that the author should be suitable to the translator's genius; that he should be such as may deserve a translation; that he who intends to translate him should endeavour to understand him; that perspicuity should be studied, and unusual and uncouth names sparingly inserted; and that the style of the original should be copied in its elevation and depression. These are the rules that are celebrated as so definite and important; and for the delivery of which to mankind so much honour has been paid. Roscommon has indeed deserved his praises, had they been given with discernment, and bestowed not on the rules themselves, but the art with which they are introduced, and the decorations with which they are adorned.

The "Essay," though generally excellent, is not without its faults. The story of the Quack, borrowed from Boileau, was not worth the importation; he has confounded the British and Saxon mythology :—

1 grant that from some mossy idol oak,

In double rhymes, our Thor and Woden spoke.

The oak, as I think Gildon has observed, beLonged to the British druids, and Thor and Woden were Saxon deities. Of the double rhymes, which he so liberally supposes, he certainly had no knowledge.

His interposition of a long paragraph of blank verses is unwarrantably licentious. Latin poets might as well have introduced a series of iambics among their heroics.

His next work is the translation of the "Art of Poetry;" which has received, in my opinion,

Blank verse,

left merely to its numbers, has little operation either on the ear or mind: it can hardly support itself without bold figures and striking images. A poem frigidly didactic, without rhyme, is so near to prose, that the reader only scorns it for pretending to be verse.

Having disentangled himself from the difficulties of rhyme, he may justly be expected to give the sense of Horace with great exactness, and to suppress no subtlety of sentiment for the difficulty of expressing it. This demand, however, his translation will not satisfy; what he found obscure, I do not know that he has ever cleared.

Among his smaller works the "Eclogue of Virgil" and the "Dies Ira" are well translated; though the best line in the "Dies Ira" is borrowed from Dryden. In return, succeeding poets have borrowed from Roscommon.

In the verses on the Lap-dog, the pronouns thou and you are offensively confounded; and the turn at the end is from Waller.

His versions of the two odes of Horace are made with great liberty, which is not recompensed by much elegance or vigour.

they were written must have been very poHis political verses are sprightly, and when pular.

of "Pompey," Mrs. Philips, in her letters to Of the scene of "Guarini" and the prologue Sir Charles Cotterel, has given the history.

"Lord Roscommon," says she, "is certainly one of the most promising young noblemen in Ireland. He has paraphrased a psalm admirably; and a scene of 66 Pastor Fido" very finely,

in some places much better than Sir Richard Fanshaw. This was undertaken merely in compliment to me, who happened to say that it was the best scene in Italian, and the worst in English. He was only two hours about it. It begins thus:

"Dear happy groves, and you the dark retreat Cf silent horror, Rest's eternal seat."

From these lines, which are since somewhat mended, it appears that he did not think a work of two hours fit to endure the eye of criticism without revisal.

When Mrs. Philips was in Ireland, some ladies that had seen her translation of" Pompey" resolved to bring it on the stage at Dublin; and, to promote their design, Lord Roscommon gave them a prologue, and Sir Edward Dering an Epilogue; "which," says she, "are the best performances of those kinds I ever saw.' " If this is not criticism, it is at least gratitude. The thought of bringing Cæsar and Pompey into Ireland, the only country over which Cæsar never had any power, is lucky.

Of Roscommon's works the judgment of th

public seems to be right. He is elegant, but | and his rhymes are remarkably exact. He im not great; he never labours after exquisite proved taste, if he did not enlarge knowledge, beauties, and he seldom falls into gross faults. and may be numbered among the benefactors to His versification is smooth, but rarely vigorous; English literature. *

OTWAY,

OF THOMAS OTWAY, one of the first names in the English drama, little is known; nor is there any part of that little which his biographer can take pleasure in relating.

He was born at Trottin, in Sussex, March 3, 1651, the son of Mr. Humphry Otway, rector of Woolbeding. From Winchester-school, where he was educated, he was entered, in 1669, a commoner of Christ-church; but left the university without a degree, whether for want of money, or from impatience of academical restraint, or mere eagerness to mingle with the world, is not known.

It seems likely that he was in hope of being busy and conspicuous; for he went to London, and commenced player; but found himself unable to gain any reputation on the stage.t

This kind of inability he shared with Shakspeare and Jonson, as he shared likewise some of their excellences. It seems reasonable to expect that a great dramatic poet should without difficulty become a great actor; that he who can feel, could express; that he who can excite passion, should exhibit with great readiness its external modes: but since experience has fully proved, that of those powers, whatever be their affinity, one may be possessed in a great degree by him who has very little of the other; it must be allowed that they depend upon different fa culties, or on different use of the same faculty; that the actor must have a pliancy of mien, a flexibility of countenance, and a variety of tones, which the poet may be easily supposed to want; or that the attention of the poet and the player have been differently employed: the one has been considering thought, and the other action; one has watched the heart, and the other contemplated the face.

Though he could not gain much notice as a

+ In "Roscius Anglicanus," by Downes the promp ter, p. 34, we learn that it was the character of the King, in Mrs. Behn's "Forced Marriage, or the Jealous Bridegroom," which Mr. Otway attempted to perform, and failed in. This event appears to have happened in the yea 672.-R.

player, he felt in himself such powers as might qualify for a dramatic author; and in 1675, his twenty-fifth year, produced "Alcibiades," a tragedy; whether from the Alcibiade of Palaprat, I have not means to inquire. Langbaine, the great detector of plagiarism, is silent.

In 1677, he published "Titus and Berenice,” translated from Rapin, with the "Cheats of Scapin," from Moliere; and in 1678, "Friendship in Fashion," a comedy, which, whatever might be its first reception, was, upon its revival at Drury-lane, in 1749, hissed off the stage for immorality and obscenity.

Want of morals, or of decency, did not in those days exclude any man from the company of the wealthy and the gay, if he brought with him any powers of entertainment; and Otway is said to have been at this time a favourite companion of the dissolute wits. But as he who desires no virtue in his companion has no virtue in himself, those whom Otway frequented had no purpose of doing more for him than to pay his reckoning. They desired only to drink and laugh their fondness was without benevolence, and their familiarity without friendship. Men of wit, says one of Otway's biographers, received at that time no favour from the great, but to share their riots; "from narrow circumstances. which they were dismissed again to their own Thus they languished in poverty, without the support of eminence." Some exception, however, must be made. natural sons, procured for him a cornet's com. The Earl of Plymouth, one of King Charles But Otway did not prosper in his military mission in some troops then sent into Flanders.

character: for he soon left his commission behind him, whatever was the reason, and came back to London in extreme indigence; which Rochester mentions with merciless insolence in the "Session of the Poets:".

This Life was originally written by Dr. Johnson in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for May, 1748. It then had notes, which are now incorporated with the text.-C.

« VorigeDoorgaan »