Lives of the English Poets: From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of Johnson's LivesCary, Henry Francis
General
Lives of the English Poets: From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of Johnson's Lives
Cary, Henry Francis
Poets, English -- Biography
In the hymns to the Hindu deities, the imagery, which is derived chiefly
from Eastern sources, is novel and attractive. That addressed to
Narayena is in a strain of singular magnificence. The description, in
the fourth stanza, of the creative power or intelligence, issuing from
the primal germ of being, and questioning itself as to its own
faculties, has something in it that fills the mind with wonder.
What four-form'd godhead came,
With graceful stole and beamy diadem,
Forth from thy verdant stem?
Full-gifted Brahma! Rapt in solemn thought
He stood, and round his eyes fire-darting threw
But whilst his viewless origin he sought,
One plain he saw of living waters blue,
Their spring nor saw nor knew.
Then in his parent stalk again retired,
With restless pain for ages he inquired
What were his powers, by whom, and why, conferr'd,
With doubts perplex'd, with keen impatience fired,
He rose, and rising heard
Th' unknown, all-knowing word,
Brahma! no more in vain research persist.
My veil thou canst not move.--Go, bid all worlds exist.
To the hymns he subjoins the first Nemean ode of Pindar, "not only," he
says, "in the same measure as nearly as possible, but almost word for
word with the original; those epithets and phrases only being
necessarily added which are printed in Italic letters." Whoever will be
at the trouble of comparing him with Pindar, will see how far he is from
fulfilling this promise.
Of the Palace of Fortune, an Indian tale, the conclusion is unexpected
and affecting.
The Persian song from Hafez, is one of those pieces that, by a nameless
charm, fasten themselves on the memory.
In the Caissa, or poem on Chess, he is not minute enough to gratify a
lover of the game, and too particular to please one who reads it for the
poetry. The former will prefer the Scacchia Ludus of Vida, of which it
is a professed imitation; and the latter will be satisfied with the few
spirited lines which the Abbe de Lille has introduced into his L'Homme
des Champs, on this subject. Vida's poem is a surprising instance of
difficulty overcome, in the manner with which he has moulded the
phraseology of the classics to a purpose apparently alien from it; and
he has made his mythology agreeable, trivial as it is, by the skill with
which it is managed. But I find that both the Caissa, and the Arcadia,
which is taken from a paper in the Guardian, were done, as the author
says, at the age of 16 or 17 years, and were saved from the fire in
preference to a great many others, because they seemed more correctly
versified than the rest. It is, therefore, hardly fair to judge them
very strictly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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