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, Dardanus, et nostræ secum ferat omina mortis.' Eneid, iv. 642-665. "Then swiftly to the fatal place she passed, 'Dear pledges of my love, while heaven so pleased! 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. 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 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, E gli occhi al cielo affisa, e in lei converso Gerus. Lib. xii. 64-69. "But now, alas! the fatal hour arrives, That her sweet life must leave that tender hold; "The Prince his hand upon her shield doth stretch, And though her life to Christ rebellious were, Friend, thou hast won! I pardon thee, nor save "With murmur loud, down from the mountain side "He died not, but all his strength unites, And while the sacred words the knight recites, She smiled, and said, ' Farewell, I die in peace.' "As violets blue 'mongst lilies pure men throw, 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 "Within a long recess there lies a bay : Eneid, i. 160. An island shades it from the rolling sea, 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, And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays 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, |