events to recollect in the Grecian, but more lines to remember in the Roman poet. To the Iliad, subsequent ages have turned with one accord for images of heroism, traits of nature, grandeur of character. To the Eneid, subsequent times will ever have recourse for touches of pathos, expressions of tenderness, felicity of language. Flaxman drew his conception of heroic sculpture from the heroes of the Iliad: Racine borrowed his heart-rending pathetic from the sorrows of Dido. Homer struck out his conceptions with the bold hand, and in the gigantic proportions, of Michael Angelo's frescoes: Virgil finished his pictures with the exquisite grace of Raphael's Madonnas.

To illustrate the different character of the Roman and Italian poet, we subjoin two passages, perhaps the finest that antiquity and modern times have produced, descriptive of the most heart-rending scenes of pathos which the human mind can figure.

"At trepida et coeptis immanibus effera Dido,
Sanguineam volvens aciem, maculisque trementes
Interfusa genas, et pallida morte futurâ,
Interiora domus irrumpit limina, et altos
Conscendit furibunda rogos, ensemque recludit
Dardanium, non hos quæsitum munus in usus.
Hic postquam Iliacas vestes notumque cubile
Conspexit, paullùm lacrymis et mente morata,
Incubuitque toro, dixitque novissima verba :
'Dulces exuviæ, dum fata Deusque sinebant !
Accipite hanc animam, meque his exsolvite curis.
Vixi, et quem dederat cursum fortuna, peregi :
Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago.
Urbem præclaram statui: mea monia vidi :
Ulta virum, pœnas inimico à fratre recepi :
Felix, heu nimiùm felix! si litora tantùm
Nunquam Dardaniæ tetigissent nostra carinæ.'
Dixit: et, os impressa toro, Moriemur inultæ ?
Sed moriamur,' ait: sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras.
Hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab alto

Dardanus, et nostræ secum ferat omina mortis.'
Dixerat: atque illam media inter talia ferro
Collapsam aspiciunt comites, ensemque cruore
Spumantem, sparsasque manus."

Eneid, iv. 642-665.

"Then swiftly to the fatal place she passed,
And mounts the funeral pile with furious haste,
Unsheathes the sword the Trojan left behind,
(Not for so dire an enterprise designed.)
But when she viewed the garments loosely spread,
Which once he wore, and saw the conscious bed,
She paused, and with a sigh the robes embraced;
Then on the couch her trembling body cast,
Repressed the ready tears, and spoke her last:

'Dear pledges of my love, while heaven so pleased!
Receive a soul of mortal anguish eased;

My fatal course is finished; and I go,

A glorious name, among the ghosts below.

A lofty city by my hands is raised;

Pygmalion punished, and my lord appeased.
What could my fortune have afforded more,
Had the false Trojan never touched my shore?'
Then kissed the couch. 'And must I die,' she said,
'And unrevenged?-'Tis doubly to be dead!
Yet e'en this death with pleasure I receive
On any terms-'tis better than to live.
These flames from far may the false Trojan view,
These boding omens his base flight pursue!'
She said, and struck: deep entered in her side
The piercing steel, with reeking purple dyed:
Clogged in the wound the cruel weapon stands;
The spouting blood came streaming on her hands."
DRYDEN'S Virgil.

It is difficult to figure poetry more beautiful than this; although Dryden's translation gives no sort of idea of the exquisite pathos of the original. But Tasso has reached a much higher flight in the well-known passage describing the death of Clorinda, which is perhaps the most exquisite gem of modern poetry.

La vide, e la conobbe ; e restò senza

E voce e moto. Ahi vista! ahi conoscenza !

"Non morì già; che sue virtuti accolse

Tutte in quel punto, e in guardia al cor le mise ;
E premendo il suo affanno, a dar si volse
Vita con l'acqua a chi col ferro uccise.
Mentre egli il suon de' sacri detti sciolse,
Colei di gioja trasmutossi, e rise:

E in atto di morir lieto e vivace,

Dir parea s' apre il Cielo; io vado in pace.

"D' un bel pallore ha il bianco volto asperso,
Come a gigli sarian miste viole;

E gli occhi al cielo affisa, e in lei converso
Sembra per la pietate il cielo e 'l sole;
E la man nuda e fredda alzando verso
Il cavaliero, in vece di parole,
Gli dà pegno di pace. In questa forma
Passa la bella donna, e par che dorma."

Gerus. Lib. xii. 64-69.

"But now, alas! the fatal hour arrives,

That her sweet life must leave that tender hold;
His sword into her bosom deep he drives,
And bathed in lukewarm blood his iron cold;
Between her breasts the cruel weapon rives
Her curious square, embossed with swelling gold;
Her knees grow weak, the pains of death she feels,
And like a falling cedar bends and reels.

"The Prince his hand upon her shield doth stretch,
And low on earth the wounded damsel laith;
And while she fell, with weak and woful speech,
Her prayers last and last complaints she saith.
A spirit new did her those prayers teach,
Spirit of hope, of charity, and faith;

And though her life to Christ rebellious were,
Yet died she his child and handmaid dear.

Friend, thou hast won! I pardon thee, nor save
This body, that all torments can endure:
But save my soul: baptism I dying crave,
Come, wash away my sins with water pure.'
His heart relenting nigh in sunder rave,
With woful speech of that sweet creature,
So that his rage, his wrath, and anger died,
And on his cheeks salt tears for ruth down slide.

"With murmur loud, down from the mountain side
A little runnel tumbled near the place;
Thither he ran, and filled his helmet wide,
And quick returned to do that work of grace.
With trembling hands her beaver he untied,
Which done, he saw, and seeing, knew her face:
And lost then with his speech and moving quite :
O woful knowledge! ah unhappy sight!

"He died not, but all his strength unites,
And to his virtues gave his heart in guard:
Bridling his grief, with water he requites
The life that he bereft with iron hard:

And while the sacred words the knight recites,
The nymph to heaven with joy herself prepared ;
And as her life decays her joys increase;

She smiled, and said, ' Farewell, I die in peace.'

"As violets blue 'mongst lilies pure men throw,
So paleness midst her native white begun.
Her looks to heaven she cast: their eyes, I trow,
Downward for pity bent both heaven and sun.
Her naked hand she gave the knight, in show
Of love and peace; her speech, alas! was done :
And thus the virgin fell on endless sleep.
Love, Beauty, Virtue, for your darling weep.”

FAIRFAX'S Tasso.

It is impossible to conceive more exquisite passages than these the very flower of ancient and modern poetry. Nothing can exceed the pathos and tenderness of Virgil's description; but how superior are the sentiments with which the Christian poet has clothed the dying moments of his heroine, to the utmost beauty which heathen imagination could conceive!

Virgil is the most charming descriptive poet of antiquity; but he has been exceeded in that which may be called his peculiar field by his successors in modern times. We select two of the finest descriptive passages, one from Virgil, and one from Thomson, to illustrate this observation.

"Est in secessu longo locus: insula portum
Efficit objectu laterum, quibus omnis ab alto
Frangitur, inque sinus scindit sese unda reductos.
Hinc atque hinc vastæ rupes, geminique minantur,
In cœlum scopuli: quorum sub vertice latè
Equora tuta silent: tum sylvis scena coruscis
Desuper, horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbrâ.
Fronte sub adversâ scopulis pendentibus antrum :
Intus aquæ dulces, vivoque sedilia saxo;
Nympharum domus. Hic fessas non vincula naves
Ulla tenent unco non alligat anchora morsu.”

"Within a long recess there lies a bay :

Eneid, i. 160.

An island shades it from the rolling sea,
And forms a port secure for ships to ride :
Broke by the jutting land on either side,
In double streams the briny waters glide.
Betwixt two rows of rocks, a sylvan scene
Appears above, and groves for ever green:
A grot is formed beneath, with mossy seats
To rest the Nereids, and exclude the heats.
Down through the crannies of the living walls
The crystal streams descend in murmuring falls.
No hawsers need to bind the vessels here,
Nor bearded anchors."

DRYDEN'S Virgil.

Virgil's description is very beautiful, though Dryden's translation gives but a feeble idea of it. But how inferior it is to Thomson's description of sunrise in summer!

"But yonder comes the powerful king of day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain brow,
Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo! now apparent, all
Aslant the dew-bright earth and coloured air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad,

And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,
High gleaming from afar."

THOMSON'S Seasons.

Virgil has been generally considered as unrivalled in the pathetic; but this observation requires to be taken with a certain limitation. No man ever exceeded Homer in the delineations of suffering, so far as he wished to portray it; but it was one branch only of that emotion that he cared to paint. It was the domestic pathetic that he delineated with such power it was in the distresses of home life, the rending asunder of home affections, that he was so great a master. The grief of Andromache on the death of Hector, and the future fate of his son begging his bread from the cold charity of strangers-the wailings of Priam and Hecuba, when that noble chief awaited before the Scaan Gate the approach of Achilles-the passionate lamentation of the Grecian chief over the dead body of Patroclus -never were surpassed in any language; they abound with traits of nature which, to the end of the world, will fascinate and melt the human heart. The tender melancholy of Evander for the fate of Pallas, who had perished by the spear of Turnus, is of the same description, and will bear a comparison with its touching predecessor. But these are all the sorrows of domestic life. Virgil and Tasso, in the description of the despair consequent on the severing of the ties of the passion of love, have opened a new field, unknown in the previous poetry of antiquity. It is to be found touched on in the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, and but touched on. The passion they represent under the name of love was not what we understand by the word, or what constitutes so important an element in the poetry and romance of modern Europe. It was not the imaginative flame feeding on hope, nursed by smiles,