What can be more preposterous than Andromache's giving, in the very midst of her most bitter wailing, a circumstantial account of her birth, parentage, and education?" Why, she might rival a Scot in her genealogical skill! The only parallel for this exhibition which I can remember is, the account which the worthy Baillie Nicol Jarvie in "Rob Roy," gives to Helen M'Gregor of their connexion, tracing it through Mac Farlanes, Mac Nabs, &c. &c., and, by its various ramifications, endeavouring to establish the relationship which might possibly save his life. But Andromache had no such sensible object in view. Then, if we are, with Pope, to believe the lines genuine, she feelingly proceeds to complain that Astyanax will lose his dinner! No doubt it is very dignified to compare a hero to a fly-nay, a host of flies, round a carcase! and to give the account of a certain poor fellow who tumbled on his nose in a certain race, and filled, not only that, but several other receptacles, with a certain substance which shall be nameless. No doubt the repetition of ὁ λοα δρῶν, ὁ λοα λέγειν, a dozen or a score of times is wondrously pathetic! and yet more so are three or four lines together composed of the singularly affecting monosyllable ?! It would be unjust to Phædra, who might have been wife to one of the seven wise men of Greece, to omit mentioning the admirable morality which she pours out wholesale in Euripides, when, in reality, she would have raved like a Bacchanalian. But in spite of the unassuming à à, and all exclamations, even up to the grandisonant orTOTOTOï— in spite of Phædra's wisdom, and Andromache's folly, great and powerful geniuses were the authors of the Iliad and the Hippolytus. But greater still, in my humble opinion, were those of Paradise Lost and King Lear. Certainly the Moderns have enjoyed great and manifold advantages, but these could not, as certainly, diminish their genius. They increased their opportunities, they gave additional facilities for exerting their natural powers; but surely those natural powers were not thereby diminished. The animal that drags his weary burthen over hill and dale, would possess the same physical powers if he performed the task on a level road; and the man whose genius can effect great things, and overcome great difficulties, surely can perform still greater things when the difficulties are less which attend and impede the performance. Such reasoning as I have here endeavoured to combat has always appeared to me most unnatural. Knowledge it is, assuredly, which forwards intellect; and, therefore, if this knowledge be unfavourable to genius, the more we multiply obstacles, the more splendidly shall we achieve success; the more ignorant we are, the more clever we shall be; and the brilliancy of our genius will be in exact proportion to the deficiency of our intellect! Let us adopt a more clear, a more liberal, a more sound opinion. Let us not, at this time, and in this country, raise our voices, feeble as they are, in support of doctrines so pernicious, and theories so unfounded : rather let us hold that in animate as in inanimate things, the moral government of God is beautiful in its consistency; that knowledge is to the mind as cultivation to the earth; it fosters and increases genius itself by the extraneous aids which it lends to it; it calls into exist ence, into growth, into maturity, by fertilization of the soil, those latent seeds which, in other circumstances, might have perished unobserved and unassisted and as in the benignant bosom of the well-tilled and fertile field the seed springs up to renovated and expanded life by the ten-aye, by the hundred fold multiplication of its own consistence and form, so, in the mind which is cultivated by knowledge, and tempered by civilization, the nobler and more glorious seeds of genius lie, soon to spring up in matchless beauty, and to enrich us with a more benign, a more copious, and a more luxuriant harvest. [To be continued.] THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPIUS, AT ATHENS. Oh! Athens, Athens, when the last sad ray O'er thy spoil'd temples, where th' encrusted stone, Alas! Alas! we then shall weep for thee— Whose wave thro' time and space rolls on eternally. Then, then, perchance, each eye may drop a tear, With smiles amid thy sorrows-and decline By the slow crumbling touch of envious age; While through each widow'd hall, and mournful shrine With stormy-footed winds and elemental rage. Thro' Time's dark mirror do we view thee yet, Each hope to conquer, and each wish to be What once thou wast, "The Glorious," and "The Free." Of Gods of Heroes-and of Liberty— (Oh! fate too cruel, and too hard a doom!) The fitful flashes strike, and all the shades illume. And thou, proud fabric! o'er whose crested neck ye fade! Alas! within ye hath the night-owl made Her ivy-mantled nest, from whence to pour The sad ill-omen'd scream, " Proud Athens is no more!" And is her race to endless shame condemn'd? And 'neath her towers shall foemen spur the steed? All o'er thy sacred hill the birds of prey Brood on those ivied walls-fair Science' reign- That wakes them from their slumbers-while the plain, Lies idle! View thine own fam'd Parthenon! C Far different were the sounds of joy, that then When Greece was glorious, and her sons were men !→→→ When thou, Olympian Jove, in peace didst shine On thy devoted temples, and the line Of Heroes which hath vanish'd! Lo, the tear Of Heaven bedews the fane, which once was thine! For they have perish'd long thro' many a rolling year! View 'mid yon broken pillars-Oh! how true Of blood-ensanguin'd hue, yet scarce can shield But Athens, thron'd upon her firm-fix'd rock, Then, Athens! if thou still hast life, ascend Where Immortality itself were pain, Death-that ye cannot fear!-Or from yon hall |
