ing of the kite is music to his ear when his soul is in harmony with nature, but where this harmony is destroyed, the notes of the nightingale are more discordant than the cawing of the rook. The poet, therefore, who places nature before us, is always musical, because when his cadences are even inharmonious, he drowns their discord in charms of a higher and superior nature, for while we are alive to these charms, even discord is music to us. Thus it is that the kite, the owl, the jay, &c. are musical when the soul is enraptured with the music of other The poet, then, who adheres to nature, is always musical, whatever be his cadences, but if his cadences be also musical, the poetic beauty is proportionably increased; while the poet who cannot copy nature, and pursue her through all her disguises, who gives us an ornamented counterfeit instead of the naked original, is always discordant, however musical his cadences may be, because our feelings are kept continually on the rack by one violation of nature or another. The classical school of poetry, then, is the only school which gives an unlimited range to the career of genius: it acknowledges every thing to be stamped with the impress of excellence which is a true copy of nature, and the only reason why it is supposed to be the most rigid of all the other schools, is simply because, with all the latitude it allows, it gives no latitude whatever for deviating from nature. Here, however, is the great difficulty. The disciples of the romantic school are well aware that it is easier to follow a thousand rules and a thousand laws of their own formation, than this one rule of the classical school, "First follow nature, and your judg ment frame By her just standard, which is still the same. It will be contended, however, by the advocates of the romantic school, that the classical school exercises too scrupulous a severity in point of language, severity and purity of diction, &c. but it should be recollected, that she does so merely in obedience to that fundamental law on which all her principles of excelit is evident that we cannot follow lence rest first follow nature; for nature without the severest purity of diction. The shades of nature are endlessly diversified, and we can copy her faithfully only so far as we distinguish one shade from another, for if we confound them we represent things which are perfectly dif ferent as one and the same thing. Again, if we give a false portrait of nature, though we should even distinguish the shades, unless we expriated to itself, for if we express press every shade by a word approdifferent shades by the same word, we either confound or throw a veil over things which are different in their nature, so that they are made to appear either as one thing, or concealed altogether from our view; and in either case we give a false transcript of nature. To attempt to describe nature, therefore,,without the greatest precision in the use of words, and even in their collocation, would be as unavailing as it would be to attempt producing various lights and shades by one die and one depth of colouring. Wherever the classical school, therefore, is more precise and observant of rule than the romantic, it will always be found, that it arises from that law of fol lowing nature to which all her other laws are subservient. To this rule she admits of no exception, and therefore it must be considered not as a general, but as a universal law to which she admits of no exception whatever. It appears, then, that the admirers of Spenser ought to be divided into two classes, those who admire him as a true copier of nature, and those who admire him only because he chiefly confined himself to romantic subjects, because he wrote in a certain stanza, and all the other arbitrary et ceteras which characterize the romantic school of poetry. The former of these classes admire Spen ser because he is worthy of their admiration, and because he excelled in that species of poetry which he cultivated. Hence it is that no person admired Spenser more than Pope, though considered the model or founder of the classical school in England; but the defenders of the romantic school admire him because he has happened to fall in with their particular system, because he happened to write upon subjects to which they confine all excellence, and for many other reasons founded on their own crazy system of poetical pre-eminence. Their admiration, then, should not, evidently, be attributed to the improved taste of the present day, so far as this taste coincides with the romantic school, and it must therefore have arisen from the circumstances and causes which I have already described. I now leave the romantic school of poetry, to conclude my observations on the genius of Spenser. Having shewn that he failed in the pathetic, the first quality of excelfence belonging to the subject of his "Faerie Queen," that he pre-eminently excelled in that species of invention without which he could not attain to excellence in a subject of a romantic nature, I now come to inquire how far he succeeded in that happy simplicity of description which pourtrays nature as it presents itself to our view, and how far he has avoided the glitter and ornament of unskilful painting. Of this little need be said. Spenser is simplicity itself, but his simplicity is not the affected simplicity of the modern school. He is simple, not because he wishes to appear so, for it would seem that he is totally unconscious of it, but because he endeavours to describe nature as he found it; not, it is true, in its ordinary appearances, but in its most picturesque moods. What can be more picturesque, and at the same time more simple and unaffectedly natural, than the following description of a hermitage? "A little lowly hermitage it was, Down in a dale, hard by a forest's side. Far from resort of people that did pass In traveill to and froe: a little wyde There was an holy chappell edifyde, Wherein the hermite dewly wont to say His holy things each morne and eventyde; Thereby a chrystall streame did gently play, Which from a sacred fountain welled forth away." It is a common expression to say "the wide canopy of heaven," but how much more sublime, and at the same time how much more simple is the expression of Spenser, "Nought is there under heaven's wide hollownesse." In his description of the gardens of Adonis are united that simplicity in the description of external nature, and that luxuriance and richness of imagination which is the very soul of descriptive poetry, and in which Spenser perhaps has never been excelled. M. M. D. FOREIG N. RECENT PUBLICATIONS, AND Literary and Scientific Intelligence. THE ZODIAC OF DENDERA, (With a Plate.) Tuis highly interesting monument of Egyptian learning, at a time long antecedent to the Christian era, is the envied property of the King of France, who purchased it of M. Saulnier, for the benefit of the French nation. Although it has been for some time exhibited to the public, it still attracts a crowd of curious admirers to the Museum, where it is for the present deposited; it will, however, soon be removed to the Royal Library, where it is to remain. The most learned of all countries, who visit Paris, are not less anxious to study, than the public in general are to view, this venerable remain of antiquity. The elucidation of the Zodiac of Dendera employs the pens of many of the ablest antiquaries on the Continent of Europe, among whom may be particularly mentioned M. Sickler, who has published a dissertation in the Algemeine Litteratur Zeitung; and M. l'abbe Halma, who has published three memoirs, at Paris; M. Biot also has read at the Academy of Sciences, and communicated to the Academy of Inscriptious, a very elaborate work on the same subject. M. Fourier is also preparing a memoir; and M. M. Saulnier and Lelorrain, to whose enterprizing and indefatigable exertions Europe, and especially France, is indebted for this zodiacal monument, are publishing a new engraving. M. Francœur has also given to the world a notice of this antiquarian curiosity in the Revue Encyclopedique. Although all these disquisitions are very erudite, they are also very different; we have therefore thought that an engraving of the Zodiac of Dendera, accompanied with a brief historical and descriptive account of it, would not be unacceptable to our readers; our endeavours may probably gratify curiosity or stimulate re search. When the French, who were pursuing the course of the Nile to penetrate into Upper Egypt, under the command of General Desaix, arrived at Dendera, the ancient Tentyris, scattered ruins announced to them the site of an ancient city, but the rubbish they at first perceived did not allow them to form an idea of the state of preservation of the edifices they were to behold. At the sight of the great temple of Dendera they were all struck with a general sentiment of admiration, and the whole army rent the air with applause. A singular homage paid by the French to the civilization and genius of men who had preceded them by three thousand years! In surveying the halls of the temple, General Desaix first discovered the Circular Zodiac which is now in Paris; he informed the learned men who attended the Egyptian expedition, and they exhibited the greatest anxiety to become acquainted with this wonder of Thebais, the palaces of Louqsor and Karnac, and a cluster of monuments that attested the ancient splendour of regions at this period almost a desert. M. Denon hastened to Dendera to admire these superb edifices, and to take a copy of the Zodiac. Among the learned, who attended the expedition into Egypt, were several students under the superintendence of the celebrated professors M. M. Berthollet, Monge, *We cannot suffer this opportunity to pass without giving our unqualified approbation to this monthly publication. The Revue Encyclopedique possesses the very rare quality of being devoted exclusively to Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts. Politics and Religion are alike excluded, and it is for that reason as well as others, like the European Magazine under its present management, an acceptable visitor in all families. The Revue Encyclopedique is divided into four Sections:-1st, Memoirs, Notices, and Miscellanies-2nd, Analyses of und Extracts from the most approved Publications-3rd, Bibliographical Bulletin, containing notices of the best works recently published in all countries-4th, Scientific and Literary Intelligence from every part of the globe. Eur. Mag. Vol. 82. 3 G |