The hounds ran swiftly through the woods And with their cries the hills and dales Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum: GEORG. iii. 43. Citharon loudly calls me to my way; Thy hounds, Taygetus, open and pursue the prey: Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses breed: DRYDEN. Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, Full twenty hundred Scottish spears, All men of pleasant Tividale, Fast by the river Tweed, &c. The country of the Scotch warriors, described in these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil: Adversi campo apparent, hastasque reductis EN. xi. 605. vii. 682, 712. With those who plow Saturnia's Gabine land: The rocks of Hernicus-besides a band, But to proceed: Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, Rode foremost of the company, Whose armour shone like gold. DRYDEN. Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, &c. Our English archers bent their bows, With that there came an arrow keen Out of an English bow, Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart, A deep and deadly blow. Eneas was wounded after the same manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley. Has inter voces, media inter talia verba, EN. xii. 318. Thus, while he spake, unmindful of defence, DRYDEN. But of all the descriptive parts of this song, there are none more beautiful than the four following stanzas, which have a great force and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such an one as would have shined in Homer or in Virgil: So thus did both these nobles die, He had a bow bent in his hand, Against Sir Hugh Montgomery The grey-goose wing that was thercon This fight did last from break of day For when they rung the ev'ning bell One may observe, likewise, that in the catalogue of the slain, the author has followed the example of the great ancient poets, not only in giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons. And with Earl Douglas there was slain Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too, His sister's son was he; Sir David Lamb so well esteem'd, Yet saved could not be. The familiar sound in these names destroys the ma jesty of the description; for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but to shew the natural cast of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a translation of Virgil. Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus Qui fuit in Teucris et servantissimus æqui. Diis aliter visum · ÆN. ii. 426. Then Ripheus fell in the unequal fight, DRYDEN. In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the same manner particularized very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that account which is given of him in the beginning of the battle; though I am satisfied your little buffoon readers (who have seen that passage ridiculed in Hudibras) will not be able to take the beauty of it: for which reason I dare not so much as quote it. Then stept a gallant 'squire forth, That e'er my captain fought on foot, Aud I stood looking on. We meet with the same heroic sentiment in Virgil. Non pudet, O Rutuli, cunctis pro talibus unam EN. xii. 229. For shame, Rutilians, can you bear the sight DRYDEN. What can be more natural, or more moving, than the circumstances in which he describes the behaviour of those women who had lost their husbands on this fatal day? Next day did many widows come Their husbands to bewail; They wash'd their wounds in brinish tears, Their bodies bath'd in purple blood, They bore with them away; They kiss'd them dead a thousand times, Thus we see how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arise from the subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noble; that the language is often very sounding, and that the whole is written with a true poetical spirit. If this song had been written in the Gothic manner, which is the delight of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the taste of so many ages, and have pleased the readers of all ranks and conditions. I shall only beg pardon for such a profusion of Latin quotations; which I -should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too singular on such a subject, had not I supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil. C. |