Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture XL — Didactic Poetry — Descriptive Poetry

Blair, Hugh · Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (Hugh Blair

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Having treated of pastoral and lyric poetry, I proceed next to didactic poetry: under which is included a numerous class of writings. The ultimate end of all poetry, indeed of every composition, should be to make some useful impression on the mind. This useful impression is most commonly made in poetry, by indirect methods; as by fable, by narration, by representation of characters; but didactic poetry openly professes its intention of conveying knowledge and instruction. It differs, therefore, in the form only, not in the scope and substance, from a philosophical, a moral, or a critical treatise in prose. At the same time, by means of its form, it has several advantages over prose instruction. By the charm of versification and numbers, it renders instruction more agreeable; by the descriptions, episodes, and other embellishments, which it may interweave, it detains, and engages the fancy; it fixes also useful circumstances more deeply in the memory. Hence, it is a field wherein a poet may gain great honour, may display both much genius, and much knowledge and judgment.

It may be executed in different manners. The poet may choose some instructive subject, and he may treat it regularly, and in form; or, without intending a great or regular work, he may only inveigh against particular vices, or make some moral observations on human life and characters, as is commonly done in satires and epistles. All these come under the denomination of didactic poetry.

The highest species of it, is a regular treatise on some philosophical, grave, or useful subject. Of this nature we have several, both ancient and modern, of great merit and character: such as Lucretius’s, six books De Rerum Natura, Virgil’s Georgics, Pope’s Essay on Criticism, Akenside’s Pleasures of the Imagination, Armstrong on Health, Horace’s, Vida’s, and Boileau’s Art of Poetry.

In all such works, as instruction is the professed object, the fundamental merit consists in sound thought, just principles, clear and apt illustrations. The poet must instruct; but he must study, at the same time, to enliven his instructions, by the introduction of such figures, and such circumstances, as may amuse the imagination, may conceal the dryness of his subject, and embellish it with poetical painting. Virgil, in his Georgics, presents us here with a perfect model. He has the art of raising and beautifying the most trivial circumstances in rural life. When he is going to say that the labour of the country must begin in spring, he expresses himself thus:

Vere novo, gelidus canis cum montibus humor Liquitur, et Zephyro putris se gleba resolvit;

Depresso incipiat jam turn mihi Taurus aratro

Ingemere, et sulco attritus splendescere vomer* I. 43.

Instead of telling his husbandman in plain language, that his crops will fail through bad management, his language is,

Heu. magnum alterius frustra spectabis acervum,

Concussaque famem in silvis solabere quercu.f 1. 158.

Instead of ordering him to water his grounds, he presents us with a beautiful landscape.

Ecce supercilio clivosi tramitis undam Elicit; illa cadens, raucum per laevia murmur

Saxa ciet, scatebrisque arentia temperat arva.j I. 108.

In all didactic works, method and order are essentially requisite; not so strict and formal as in a prose treatise; yet such as may exhibit clearly to the reader a connected train of instruction. —Of the didactic poets, whom I before mentioned, Horace, in his Art of Poetry, is the one most censured for want of method. Indeed, if Horace be deficient in any thing throughout many of his writings, it is in this, of not being sufficiently attentive to juncture and connexion of parts. He writes always with ease and gracefulness; but often in a manner somewhat loose and rambling. There is, however, in that work much good sense, and excellent criticism; and, if it be considered as intended for the regulation of the Roman drama, which seems to have been the author’s chief purpose, it will be found to be a more complete and regular treatise than under the common notion of its being a system of the whole poetical art.

With regard to episodes and embellishments, great liberty is allowed to writers of didactic poetry. We soon tire of a continued series of instructions, especially in a poetical work, where we look for entertainment. The great art of rendering a didactic poem interesting, is to relieve and amuse the reader, by connecting some agreeable episodes with the principal subject. These are always the parts of the work which are best known, and which contribute most to support the reputation of the poet. The principal beauties of Virgil’s Georgics lie in digressions of this kind, in which the au

* While yet the Spring is young, while earth unbinds Her frozen bosom to the western winds;

While mountain snows dissolve against the sun,

And streams yet new from precipices run;

Ev'n in this early dawning of the year,

Produce the plough and yoke the sturdy steer,

And goad him till he groans beneath his toil,

Till the bright share is buried in the soil.

f On others’ crops you may with envy look,

And shake for food the long abandon’d oak.

t Behold when burning suns, or Sirius’ beams Strike fiercely on the field and withering stems,

Down from the summit of the neighbouring hills,

O’er the smooth stones he calls the bubbling rills;

Soon as he clears whate'er their passage stay’d,

And marks their future current with his spade,

Before him scattering they prevent his pains,

And roll with hollow murmurs o’er the plains.

‸thor has exerted all the force of his genius; such as the prodigies that attended the death of Julius Caesar, the praises of Italy, the happiness of a country life, the fable of Aristeus, and the moving tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. In like manner the favourite passages in Lucretius’s work, and which alone could render such a dry and abstract subject tolerable in poetry, are the digressions on the evils of superstition, the praise of Epicurus and his philosophy, the description of the plague, and several other incidental illustrations, which are remarkably elegant, and adorned with a sweetness and harmony of versification peculiar to that poet. There is, indeed, nothing in poetry, so entertaining or descriptive, but what a didactic writer of genius may be allowed to introduce in some part of his work; provided always, that such episodes arise naturally from the main subject; that they be not disproportioned in length to it; and that the author know how to descend with propriety to the plain, as well as how to rise to the bold and figured style.

Much art may be shown by a didactic poet in connecting his episodes happily with his subject. Virgil is also distinguished for his address in this point. After seeming to have left his husbandmen, he again returns to them very naturally by laying hold of some rural circumstance, to terminate his digression. Thus, having spoken of the battle of Pharsalia, he subjoins immediately, with much art:

Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis Agricola, incurvo terrain molitus aratro,

Exesa inveniet scabra rubigine pila;

Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes,

Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris.* Geo. I. 493.

In English, Dr. Akenside has attempted the most rich and poetical form of didactic writing in his Pleasures of the Imagination; and though, in the execution of the whole, he is not equal, he has, in several parts, succeeded happily, and displayed much genius. Dr. Armstrong, in his Art of Preserving Health, has not aimed at so high a strain as the other. But he is more equal; and maintains throughout a chaste and correct elegance.

Satires and epistles naturally run into a more familiar style, than solemn philosophical poetry. As the manners and characters, which occur in ordinary life, are their subject, they require being treated with somewhat of the ease and freedom of conversation, and hence it is commonly the ‘musa pedestris,’ which reigns in such compositions.

Satire, in its first state among the Romans, had a form different from what it afterwards assumed. Its origin is obscure, and has given occasion to altercation among critics. It seems to have been at first a relic of the ancient comedy, written partly in prose, partly

* Then, after length of time, the lab’ring swains Who turn the turf of these unhappy plains,

Shall rusty arms from the plough’d furrows take.

And over empty helmets pass the rake;

Amus’d at antique titles on the stones,

And mighty relics of gigantic bones.

in verse, and abounding with scurrility. Ennius and Lucilius corrected its grossness; and at last, Horace brought it into that form, which now gives the denomination to satirical writing. Reformation of manners, is the end which it professes to have in view; and in order to this end, it assumes the liberty of boldly censuring vice, and vicious characters. It has been carried on in three different manners, by the three great ancient satirists, Horace, Juvenal, and Perseus. Horace’s style has not much elevation. He entitles his satires, ‘Sermones,’ and seems not to have intended rising much higher than prose put into numbers. His manner is easy and graceful. They are rather the follies and weaknesses of mankind, than their enormous vices, which he chooses for the object of his satire. He reproves with a smiling aspect; and while he moralizes like a sound philosopher, discovers, at the same time, the politeness of a courtier. Juvenal is much more serious and declamatory. He has more strength and fire, and more elevation of style, than Horace; but is greatly inferior to him in gracefulness and ease. His satire is more zealous, more sharp and pointed, as being generally directed against more flagitious characters. As Scaliger says of him,

‘ardet, instat, jugulat;’ whereas Horace’s character is, admissus circum praecordia ludit.’ Perseus has a greater resemblance of the force and fire of Juvenal, than of the politeness of Horace. He is distinguished for sentiments of noble and sublime morality. He is a nervous and lively writer; but withal, often harsh and obscure.

Poetical epistles, when employed on moral or critical subjects, seldom rise into a higher strain of poetry than satires. In the form of an epistle, indeed, many other subjects may be handled, and either love poetry, or elegiac, may be carried on, as in Ovid’s Epistolae Heroidum, and his Epistolae de Ponto. Such works as these are designed to be merely sentimental; and as their merit consists in being proper expressions of the passion or sentiment which forms the subject, they may assume any tone of poetry that is suited to it. But didactic epistles, of which I now speak, seldom admit of much elevation. They are commonly intended as observations on authors, or on life and characters; in delivering which, the poet does not purpose to compose a formal treatise, or to confine himself strictly to regular method; but gives scope to his genius on some particular theme, which, at the time, has prompted him to write. In all didactic poetry of this kind, it is an important rule, ‘quicquid praecipies, esto brevis.’ Much of the grace, both of satirical and epistolary writing, consists in a spirited conciseness. This gives to such composition an edge and a liveliness, which strike the fancy, and keep attention awake. Much of their merit depends also on just and happy representations of characters. As they are not supported by those high beauties of descriptive and poetical language which adorn other compositions, we expect, in return, to be entertained with lively paintings of men and manners, which are always pleasing; and in these, a certain sprightliness and turn of wit finds its proper place. The higher species of poetry seldom admit it; but here it is seasonable and beautiful.

In all these respects, Mr. Pope’s ethical epistles deserve to be mentioned with signal honour, as a model, next to perfect, of this kind of poetry. Here, perhaps, the strength of his genius appeared. In the more sublime parts of poetry, he is not so distinguished. In the enthusiasm, the fire, the force, and copiousness of poetic genius, Dryden, though a much less correct writer, appears to have been superior to him. One can scarcely think that he was capable of epic or tragic poetry; but within a certain limited region, he has been outdone by no poet. His translation of the Iliad will remain a lasting monument to his honour, as the most elegant and highly finished translation, that, perhaps, ever was given of any poetical work.* That he was not incapable of tender poetry, appears from the epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, and from the verses to the memory of an unfortunate lady, which are almost his only sentimental productions; and which, indeed, are excellent in their kind. But the qualities for which he is chiefly distinguished are, judgment and wit, with a concise and happy expression, and a melodious versification. Few poets ever had more wit, and at the same time more judgment, to direct the proper employment of that wit. This renders his Rape of the Lock the greatest masterpiece that perhaps was ever composed, in the gay and sprightly style; and in his serious works, such as his Essay on Man, and his Ethic Epistles, his wit just sufficiently discovers itself to give a proper seasoning to grave reflections. His imitations of Horace are so peculiarly happy, that one is at a loss, whether most to admire the original or the copy; and they are among the few imitations extant, that have all the grace and ease of an original. His paintings of characters are natural and lively in a high degree; and never was any writer so happy in that concise spirited style, which gives animation to satires and epistles. We are never so sensible of the good effects of rhyme in English verse, as in reading these parts of his works. We see it adding to the style, an elevation which otherwise it could not have possessed; while at the same time he manages it so artfully, that it never appears in the least to encumber him; but, on the contrary, serves to increase the liveliness of his manner. He tells us himself, that he could express moral observations more concisely, and therefore more forcibly, in rhyme, than he could do in prose.

Among moral and didactic poets, Dr. Young is of too great eminence to be passed over without notice. In all his works, the marks of strong genius appear. His universal passion, possesses the full merit of that animated conciseness of style, and lively description of characters, which I mentioned as particularly requisite in satirical and didactic compositions. Though his wit may often be thought too sparkling, and his sentences, too pointed, yet the vivacity of his fancy is so great, as to entertain every reader. In his Night Thoughts, there is much energy of expression; in the three first, there are several pathetic passages; and scattered through them all, happy images and allusions, as well as pious reflections, occur. But the sentiments are frequently overstrained and turgid; and the style is too harsh and obscure to be pleasing. Among French authors, Boileau has undoubtedly much merit in didactic poetry. Their later critics are unwilling to allow him any great share of original genius, or poetic fire.* But his art of poetry, his satires and epistles, must ever be esteemed eminent, not only for solid and judicious thought, but for correct and elegant poetical expression, and fortunate imitation of the ancients.

From didactic, I proceed next to treat of descriptive poetry, where the highest exertions of genius may be displayed. By descriptive poetry, I do not mean any one particular species or form of composition. There are few compositions of any length, that can be called purely descriptive, or wherein the poet proposes to himself no other object, but merely to describe, without employing narration, action, or moral sentiment, as the groundwork of his piece. Description is generally introduced as an embellishment, rather than made the subject of a regular work. But though it seldom form a separate species of writing, yet into every species of poetical composition, pastoral, lyric, didactic, epic, and dramatic, it both enters, and possesses in each of them a very considerable place; so that in treating of poetry, it demands no small attention.

Description is the great test of a poet’s imagination; and always distinguishes an original from a second-rate genius. To a writer of the inferior class, nature, when at any time he attempts to describe it, appears exhausted by those who have gone before him in the same track. He sees nothing new, or peculiar, in the object which he would paint; his conceptions of it are loose and vague; and his expressions, of course, feeble and general. He gives us words rather than ideas; we meet with the language indeed of poetical description, but we apprehend the object described very indistinctly. Whereas, a true poet makes us imagine that we see it before our eyes; he catches the distinguishing features; he gives it the colours of life and reality: he places it in such a light that a painter could copy after him. This happy talent is chiefly owing to a strong imagination, which first receives a lively impression of the object; and then, by employing a proper selection of circumstances in describing it, transmits that impression in its full force to the imagination of others.

In this selection of circumstances lies the great art of picturesque description. In the first place, they ought not to be vulgar and common ones, such as are apt to pass by without remark; but, as much as possible, new and original, which may catch the fancy and draw attention. In the next place, they ought to be such as particularize the object described, and mark it strongly. No description, that rests in generals, can be good. For we can conceive nothing clearly in the abstract; all distinct ideas are formed upon particulars. In the third place, all the circumstances employed ought to be uniform, and of a piece; that is, when describing a great object, every circumstance brought into view should tend to aggrandize; or, when describing a gay and pleasant one, should tend to beautify, that by

* Vid. Poétique Françoise de Marmontel.

this means, the impression may rest upon the imagination complete and entire: and lastly, the circumstances in description should be expressed with conciseness and with simplicity; for, when either too much exaggerated, or too long dwelt upon and extended, they never fail to enfeeble the impression that is designed to be made. Brevity, almost always contributes to vivacity. These general rules will be best understood by illustrations, founded on particular instances.

Of all professed descriptive compositions, the largest and fullest that I am acquainted with, in any language, is Mr. Thomson’s Seasons; a work which possesses very uncommon merit. The style, in the midst of much splendour and strength, is sometimes harsh, and may be censured as deficient in ease and distinctness. But notwithstanding this defect, Thomson is a strong and a beautiful describer; for he had a feeling heart, and a warm imagination. He had studied and copied nature with care. Enamoured of her beauties, he not only described them properly, but felt their impression with strong sensibility. The impression which he felt, he transmits to his readers; and no person of taste can peruse any one of his Seasons, without having the ideas and feelings, which belong to that season, recalled and rendered present to his mind. Several instances of most beautiful description might be given from him; such as, the shower in Spring, the morning in Summer, and the man perishing in snow in Winter. But, at present, I shall produce a passage of another kind, to show the power of a single well chosen circumstance, to heighten a description. In his Summer, relating the effects of heat in the torrid zone, he is led to take notice of the pestilence that destroyed the English fleet, at Carthagena, under Admiral Vernon; when he has the following lines:

You, gallant Vernon, saw

The miserable scene; you pitying saw To infant weakness sunk the warrior’s arms;

Saw the deep racking pang; the ghastly form;

The lip pale quiv’ring; and the beamless eye No more with ardour bright; you heard the groans Of agonizing ships from shore to shore;

Heard nightly plunged, amid the sullen waves,

The frequent corse. L. 1050.

All the circumstances here are properly chosen, for setting this dismal scene in a strong light before our eyes. But what is most striking in the picture, is, the last image. We are conducted through all the scenes of distress, till we come to the mortality prevailing in the fleet, which a vulgar poet would have described by exaggerated expressions, concerning the multiplied trophies and victories of death. But, how much more is the imagination impressed, by this single circumstance of dead bodies thrown overboard every night; of the constant sound of their falling into the waters, and of the Admiral listening to this melancholy sound, so often striking his ear?

Heard nightly plunged, amid the sullen waves,

The frequent corse.*

* The eulogium which Dr. Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, gives of Thom Mr. Parnell’s tale of the Hermit is conspicuous throughout the whole of it, for beautiful descriptive narration. The manner of the Hermit’s setting forth to visit the world; his meeting with a companion, and the houses in which they are successively entertained, of the vain man, the covetous man, and the good man, are pieces of very fine painting, touched with a light and delicate pencil, overcharged with no superfluous colouring, and conveying to us a lively idea of the objects. But, of all the English poems in the descriptive style, the richest and most remarkable are, Milton’s Allegro and Penseroso. The collection of gay images on the one hand, and of melancholy ones on the other, exhibited in these two small, but inimitably fine poems, are as exquisite as can be conceived. They are, indeed, the storehouse whence many succeeding poets have enriched their descriptions of similar subjects; and they alone are sufficient for illustrating the observations which I made, concerning the proper selection of circumstances in descriptive writing. Take, for instance, the following passage from the Penseroso:

I walk unseen

On the dry, smooth-shaven green,

To behold the wandering moon,

Riding near her highest noon:

Like one that had been led astray

Through the heaven’s wide pathless way,

And oft, as if her head she bow’d,

Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

Oft, on a plat of rising ground,

I hear the far-off curfew sound,

Over some wide watered shore,

Swinging slow with solemn roar; Or, if the air will not permit,

Some still removed place will fit,

Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom; Far from all resort of mirth,

Save the cricket on the hearth,

Or the bellman’s drowsy charm,

To bless the doors from nightly harm;

son, is high, and, in my opinion, very just: ‘As a writer, he is entitled to the praise of the highest kind; his mode of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation. He thinks in a peculiar strain, and he thinks always as a man of genius. He looks round on nature and life, with the eye which nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes in every thing presented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained; and with a mind, that at once comprehends the vast and attends to the minute. The reader of the Seasons wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson impresses. His descriptions of extended scenes, and general effects, bring before us the whole magnificence of nature, whether pleasing or dreadful. The gayety of spring, the splendour of summer, the tranquillity of autumn, and the horror of winter, take, in their turn, possession of the mind. The poet leads us through the appearances of things, as they are successively varied by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us so much of his own enthusiasm, that our thoughts expand with his imagery, and kindle with his sentiments.’ The censure which the same eminent critic passes upon Thomson’s diction, is no less just and well founded, that ‘it is too exuberant, and may sometimes be charged with filling the ear more than the mind.’

Or let my lamp, at midnight hour,

Be seen, in some high lonely tower,

Where I may outwatch the Bear With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere The spirit of Plato, to unfold What worlds, or what vast regions hold Th’ immortal mind, that hath forsook Her mansion in his fleshly nook;

And of those demons that are found In fire, air, flood, or under ground.

Here there are no unmeaning general expressions; all is particular, all is picturesque; nothing forced or exaggerated; but a simple style, and a collection of strong expressive images, which are all of one class, and recal a number of similar ideas of the melancholy kind, particularly the walk by moon-light; the sound of the curfew-bell heard distant; the dying embers in the chamber; the bellman’s call; and the lamp seen at midnight in the high lonely tower. We may observe, too, the conciseness of the poet’s manner. He does not rest long on one circumstance, or employ a great many words to describe it; which always makes the impression faint and languid; but placing it in one strong point of view, full and clear before the reader, he there leaves it.

‘From his shield and his helmet,’ says Homer, describing one of his heroes in battle, ‘From his shield and his helmet, there sparkled an incessant blaze; like the autumnal star, when it appears in its brightness from the waters of the ocean.’ This is short and lively; but when it comes into Mr. Pope’s hands, it evaporates in three pompous lines, each of which repeats the same image in different words:

High on his helm celestial lightnings play.

His beamy shield emits a living ray;

Th’ unwearied blaze incessant streams supplies,

Like the red star that fires th’ autumnal skies.

It is to be observed, in general, that, in describing solemn or great objects, the concise manner is almost always proper. Descriptions of gay and smiling scenes can bear to be more amplified and prolonged, as strength is not the predominant quality expected in these. But where a sublime or a pathetic impression is intended to be made, energy is above all things required. The imagination ought then to be seized at once; and it is far more deeply impressed by one strong and ardent image, than by the anxious minuteness of laboured illustration. ‘His face was without form, and dark,' says Ossian, describing a ghost, ‘the stars dim twinkling through his form; thrice he sighed over the hero; and thrice the winds of the night roared around.’

It deserves attention, too, that in describing inanimate natural objects, the poet, in order to enliven his description, ought always to mix living beings with them. The scenes of dead and still life are apt to pall upon us, if the poet do not suggest sentiments and introduce life and action into his description. This is well known to every painter who is a master of his art. Seldom has any beautiful landscape been drawn, without some human being represented on the canvas, as beholding it, or on some account concerned in it:

Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata. Lycori,

Hic nemus, hic ipso tecum consumerer aevo.* Eel. x. 42.

The touching part of these fine lines of Virgil’s, is the last, which sets before us the interest of two lovers in this rural scene. A long description of the ‘fontes,’ the ‘nemus,’ and the ‘prata,’ in the most poetical modern manner, would have been insipid without this stroke, which in a few words, brings home to the heart all the beauties of the place: * hie ipso tecum consumerer aevo.’ It is a great beauty in Milton’s Allegro, that it is all alive, and full of persons.

Every thing, as I before said, in description, should be as marked and as particular as possible, in order to imprint on the mind a distinct and complete image. A hill, a river, or a lake, rises up more conspicuous to the fancy, when some particular lake, or river, or hill, is specified, than when the terms are left general. Most of the ancient writers have been sensible of the advantage which this gives to description. Thus, in that beautiful pastoral composition, the Song of Solomon, the images are commonly particularized by the objects to which they allude. It is the ‘ rose of Sharon; the lily of the vallies; the flock which feeds on Mount Gilead; the stream which comes from Mount Lebanon. Come with me, from Lebanon, my spouse; look from the top of Amana, from the top of She nir and Hermon, from the mountains of the leopards.’ Chap. iv. 8. So Horace:

Quid dedicatum poscit Apollinem Vates? quid orat de patera novum Fundens liquorem? non opimas Sardiniae segetes feracis j Non aestuosae grata Calabriae Armenta; non aurum aut ebur Indicum

Non rura, quae Liris quieta

Mordet aqua, taciturnus amnis.t Lib. I. Ode 31. 1.

Both Homer and Virgil are remarkable for the talent of poetical description. In Virgil’s second Aeneid, where he describes the burning and sacking of Troy, the particulars are so well selected and represented, that the reader finds himself in the midst of that scene of

* Here cooling fountains roll through flow’ry meads,

Here woods, Lycoris, lift their verdant heads,

Here could I wear my careless life away,

And in thy arms insensibly decay. Warton.

When at Apollo’s hallowed shrine The poet hails the power divine,

And here his first libation pours,

What is the blessing he implores?

He nor desires the swelling grain,

That yellows o’er Sardinia’s plain,

Nor the fair herds, that, lowing, feed On warm Calabria’s flowery mead;

Nor ivory of spotless shine;

Nor gold forth flaming from the mine,

Nor the rich fields that Liris laves.

And eats away with silent waves Francis.

horror. The death of Priam, especially, may be singled out as a masterpiece of description. All the circumstances of the aged monarch arraying himself in armour, when he finds the enemy making themselves masters of the city; his meeting with his family, who are taking shelter at an altar in the court of the palace, and their placing him in the midst of them; his indignation when he beholds Pyrrhus slaughtering one of his sons; the feeble dart which he throws; with Pyrrhus’s brutal behaviour, and his manner of putting the old man to death, are painted in the most affecting manner, and with a masterly hand. All Homer’s battles, and Milton’s account, both of Paradise and of the infernal regions, furnish many beautiful instances of poetical description. Ossian, too, paints in strong and lively colours, though he employs few circumstances; and his chief excellency lies in painting to the heart. One of his fullest descriptions is the following of the ruins of Balclutha; ‘I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The fire had resounded within the halls; and the voice of the people is now heard no more. The stream of Clutha was removed from its place, by the fall of the walls; the thistle shook there its lonely head; the moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out at the window; the rank grass waved round his head. Desolate is the dwelling of Moina. Silence is in the house of her fathers.’ Shakspeare cannot be omitted on this occasion, as singularly eminent for painting with the pencil of nature. Though it be in manners and characters, that his chief excellency lies, yet his scenery also is often exquisite, and happily described by a single stroke; as in that fine line of the ‘Merchant of Venice,’ which conveys to the fancy as natural and beautiful an image, as can possibly be exhibited in so few words:

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit, &c.

Much of the beauty of descriptive poetry depends upon a right choice of epithets. Many poets, it must be confessed, are too careless in this particular. Epithets are frequently brought in merely to complete the verse, or make the rhyme answer; and hence they are so unmeaning and redundant, expletive words only, which in place of adding any thing to the description, clog and enervate it. Virgil’s ‘Liquidi fontes,’ and Horace’s ‘Prata canis albicant pruinis,’ must,

I am afraid, be assigned to this class: for, to denote by an epithet that water is liquid, or that snow is white, is no better than mere tautology. Every epithet should either add a new idea to the word which it qualifies, or at least serve to raise and heighten its known signification. So in Milton,

- Who shall tempt with wandering feet

The dark, unbottom’d, infinite abyss,

And through the palpable obscure, find out His uncouth way? or spread his airy flight,

Upborne with indefatigable wings,

Over the vast abrupt? B. II.

The epithets employed here plainly add strength to the description, and assist the fancy in conceiving it; — the wandering feet — the unbottomed abyss — the palpable obscure — the uncouth way — the indefatigable wing — serve to render the images more complete and distinct. But there are many general epithets, which, though they appear to raise the signification of the word to which they are joined, yet leave it so undetermined, and are now become so trite and beaten in poetical language, as to be perfectly insipid. Of this kind are ‘barbarous discord — hateful envy — mighty chiefs — bloody war —gloomy shades — direful scenes,’ and a thousand more of the same kind which we meet with occasionally in good poets; but with which, poets of inferior genius abound every where, as the great props of their affected sublimity. They give a sort of swell to the language, and raise it above the tone of prose; but they serve not in the least to illustrate the object described; on the contrary, they load the style with a languid verbosity.

Sometimes it is in the power of a poet of genius, by one well-chosen epithet, to accomplish a description, and by means of a single word, to paint a whole scene to the fancy. We may remark this effect of an epithet in the following fine lines of Milton’s Lycidas:

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Clos’d o’er the head of your lov’d Lycidas?

For neither were ye playing on the steep,

Where your old bards, the famous Druids lie,

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.

Among these wild scenes, 4Deva’s wizard stream’ is admirably imaged; by this one word, presenting to the fancy all the romantic ideas, of a river flowing through a desolate country, with banks haunted by Druids and enchanters. Akin to this is an epithet which Horace gives to the river Hydaspes. A good man, says he, stands in need of no arms,

Sive per Syrtes iter aestuosas,

Sive facturus per inhospitalem Caucasum, vel quce loca fabulosus

Lambit Hydaspes* I. od. 22. 5.

This epithet ‘fabulosus,’ one of the commentators on Horace has changed into ‘sabulosus,’ or ‘sandy,’ substituting, by a strange want of taste, the common and trivial epithet of ‘the sandy river,’ in place of that beautiful picture which the poet gives us, by calling Hydaspes ‘the romantic river,’ or the scene of adventures and poetic tales.

Virgil has employed an epithet with great beauty and propriety, when accounting for Daedalus not having engraved the fortune of his son Icarus:

Bis conatus erat casus effingere in auro;

Bis patriae cecidere manus.t Aen. vi. 32.

* Whether through Lybia’s burning sands Our journey leads, or Scythia’s lands,

Amidst th’ unhospitable waste of snows,

Or where the fabulous Hydaspes flows. Francis.

f Here hapless Icarus had found his part,

Had not the father’s grief restrain’d his art:

He twice essay’d to cast his son in gold,

Twice from his hand he dropp’d the forming mould. Dryden.

In this translation the thought is justly given; but the beauty of the expression ‘patriae manus,’ which in the original conveys the thought with so much tenderness, is lost.

These instances and observations may give some just idea of true poetical description. We have reason always to distrust an author’s descriptive talents, when we find him laborious and turgid, amassing common place epithets and general expressions, to work up a high conception of some object, of which, after all, we can form but an indistinct idea. The best describers are simple and concise. They set before us such features of an object, as, on the first view, strike and warm the fancy; they give us ideas which a statuary or a painter could lay hold of, and work after them; which is one of the strongest and most decisive trials of real merit of description.