Leave to the sons of Carthage Leave to the Greek his marble nymphs, 21. "Thine, Roman, is the pilum; Roman, the sword is thine, The even trench, the bristling mound, And thine the wheels of triumph, 22. “Beneath thy yoke, the Volscian Before thy chairs shall bow; The Lucumoes of Arnus Shall quake thy rods to see; And the proud Samnite's heart of steel Shall yield to only thee. 23. "The Gaul shall come against thee From the land of snow and night: Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies To the raven and the kite. 24. "The Greek shall come against thee, The conqueror of the East: Beside him stalks to battle The huge, earth-shaking beast, The beast on whom the castle With all its guards doth stand, The beast who hath between his eyes The serpent for a hand. First march the bold Epirotes, Wedged close with shield and spear; And the ranks of false Tarentum Are glittering in the rear. 25. "The ranks of false Tarentum Like hunted sheep shall fly; In vain the bold Epirotes Shall round their standards die; And Apennine's gray vultures Shall have a noble feast On the fat and the eyes Of the huge earth-shaking beast. 26. "Hurrah for the good weapons That keep the War-God's land! Hurrah for Rome's stout pilum In a stout Roman hand! Hurrah for Rome's short broadsword, That through the thick array Of leveled spears and serried shields Hews deep its gory way! 27. “Hurrah for the great triumph Is not the gown washed white? 28. “Hurrah for the great triumph Torn from the pheasant's wings, The belts set thick with starry gems That shone on Indian kings, The urns of massy silver, The goblets rough with gold, The many-colored tablets bright The stone that breathes and struggles, 29. "Hurrah for Manius Curius, "Then where, o'er two bright havens, On his own Rhodes looks down; Beneath the laurel shades; Of dark-red colonnades; Where, in the still, deep water, Sheltered from waves and blasts, Bristles the dusky forest Of Byrsa's thousand masts; Where fur-clad hunters wander Amidst the northern ice; Where through the sand of morning-land The camel bears the spice; Where Atlas flings his shadow Far o'er the western foam, Shall be great fear on all who hear The mighty name of Rome." MILTON. Ir is by his poetry that Milton is best known; and it is of his poetry that we wish first to speak. By the general suffrage of the civilized world, his place has been assigned among the greatest masters of the art. His detractors, however, though outvoted, have not been silenced. There are many critics, and some of great name, who contrive in the same breath to extol the poems and to decry the poet. The works, they acknowledge, considered in themselves, may be classed among the noblest productions of the human mind; but they will not allow the author to rank with those great men, who, born in the infancy of civilization, supplied by their own powers the want of instruction, and, though destitute of models themselves, bequeathed to posterity models which defy imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited what his predecessors created; he lived in an enlightened age; he received a finished education; and we must, therefore, if we would form a just estimate of his powers, make large deductions for these advantages. We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the remark may appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle with more unfavorable circumstances than Milton. He doubted, as he has himself owned, whether he had not been born "an age too late." For this notion, Johnson has thought fit to make him the butt of his clumsy ridicule. The poet, we believe, understood the nature of his art better than the critic. He knew that his poetical genius derived no advantage from the civilization which surrounded him, or from the learning which he had acquired; and he looked back with something like regret to the ruder age of simple words and vivid impressions. On the We think, that, as civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. Therefore, though we admire those great works of imagination which have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them the more because they have appeared in dark ages. contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age. We can not understand why those who believe in that most orthodox article of literary faith, that the earliest poets are generally the best, should wonder at the rule as if it were the exception. Surely the uniformity of the phenomenon indicates a corresponding uniformity in the cause. The fact is, that common observers reason from the progress of the experimental sciences to that of the imitative arts. The improvement of the former is gradual and slow. Ages are spent in collecting materials; ages more in separating and combining them. Even when a system has been formed, there is still something to add, to alter, or to reject. Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits it, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the first speculators lie under great disadvantages, and, even when they fail, are entitled to praise. Their pupils, with far inferior intellectual powers, speedily surpass them in actual attainments. Every girl who has read Mrs. Marcet's "Little Dialogues on Political Economy" could teach Montague or Walpole many lessons in finance. Any intelligent man may now, by resolutely applying himself for a few years to mathematics, learn more than the great Newton knew after half a century of study and meditation. But it is not thus with music, with painting, or with sculpture: still less is it thus with poetry. The progress of refinement rarely supplies these arts with better objects of imitation. It may, indeed, improve the instruments which are necessary to the mechanical operations of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter; but language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical: that of a half-civilized people is poetical. This change in the language of men is partly the cause, and partly the effect, of a corresponding change in the nature of their intellectual operations, -a change by which science gains, and poetry loses. Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge, but particularly in the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more, and think more, they look less at individuals, and more at classes. They therefore make better theories, and worse poems. They give us vague phrases instead of images, and personified qualities instead of men. They may be better able to analyze human nature than their predecessors; but analysis is not the business of the poet. His office is to portray, not to dissect. He may believe in a moral sense, like Shaftesbury; he may refer all human actions to self-interest, like Helvetius; or he may never think about the matter at all. His creed on such subjects will no more influence his poetry, properly so called, than the notions which a painter may have conceived respecting the lachrymal glands, or the circulation of the blood, will affect the tears of his Niobe, or the blushes of his Aurora. If Shakspeare had written a book on the motives of human actions, it is by no means certain that it would have been a good one. It is extremely improbable that it would have contained half so much able reasoning on the subject as is to be found in the "Fable of the Bees." But could Mandeville have created an Iago? Well as he knew how to resolve characters into their elements, would he have been able to combine those elements in such a manner as to make up a man, —a real, living, individual man ? Perhaps no man can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind, if any thing which gives so much pleasure ought to be called unsoundness. By poetry, we mean, not, of course, all writing in verse, nor even all good writing in verse. Our definition excludes many metrical compositions, which on other grounds deserve the highest praise. By poetry, we |