Swisserland. The devastation of this country by the French is the subject: "Hic pacis altrix stramineos colit Tesqua repercutiunt amoris." Charles Hayes, of King's College, 1780, writes on the death of the celebrated circumnavigator James Cooke, in verses which are so far appropriate, that they are themselves destined to a premature fate. ---- "Jam videor manus Videre densas insidiantium," says Mr. Hayes: but these genitives plural are better contracted in Lyric poetry, as well as the genitives singular! In short, the whole poem should be shortened. C. J. Blomfield's ode, 1805, on the death of the Duke D'Enghien, is below criticism. Who, but his French assassins, • could have been guilty of such rudeness as to put the following language into the mouth of that unfortunate Prince? "Quin jam cadenti hæreret in ultimo "Dulce erit haud cecidisse dextrâ !” This would really have merited castigation in the lowest classes of our public schools.-The Greek ode of this poet redeems his Latin peccadilloes. He is, we hear, a very promising scholar of Trinity College. J. Lonsdale, of King's College, 1807, elegantly and forcibly bewails the death of Mr. Pitt. The following is a good stanza: but "risum teneatis, amici," at the sentiment of the last two lines? Liberty groaning over the loss of Mr. Pitt! "Tanta superbam funere victima Ingemuit graviter patrono.” Is not a patron, my Lord," (said Johnson to Lord Chesterfield,) "one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water; and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?" Not that Liberty can complain of the incumbrance which she ever felt from that patron's assistance. -We are pleased to see the same poet writing on a better subject, the expulsion of the French from Portugal. May he write upon it again! In his ode, 1809, we find these ani mated mated lines, among many others of equal vigour and natural warmth: "O si, relictis sedibus ætheris, Magna sacri Camöentis umbra! "O si, pererrans rursus eburneam Stellam renascentem suorum, Et profugos caneret Tyrannos ?" The succeeding ode, by Benjamin Drury, of King's College, 1804, has unusual strength of thought and expression. It is to be ranked with Keate's and Robert Smith's productions. Perhaps in some passages the author has made Juvenal write alcaics instead of hexameters, and has lost sight of Horace: but who can coldly criticize such verses as these? (The ode is on the threatened French invasion) "Prorumpite hostes: infremuit tuba ; Prorumpite hostes; impatiens moræ ; Should it not be Arces? Artes (if not a false print) is a violent catachresis. Thomas Smart Hughes, of St. John's College, 1806, has composed a very spirited poem on the death of Lord Nelson: but what shall we say of the ode of the Honourable Edward Law, of St. John's, 1808, on the Portuguese transfer of empire? Surely they write as good Alcaics in the Brazils: "Mussat tacito doctrina timore." We now come to the Greek odes. All that is good in the modern composition of antient Greek (according to the classical bull on the subject) is good for nothing. for unless such composition be a cento, it can never certainly be correct; and if it be a cento, where is its value? Dawes in his Miscellanes Critica, and much greater man in his common conversation, bore testimony to the truth of this discouraging fact: — but, without the nice judgment of these severe examiners of classical composition, we may assuredly say that it is easy to discover modern from antient Greek verses. Who could mistake the following stanza for the idlest prelude of Erinne; or even of the humblest poetess, or poetaster, who antiently imitated Sappho ? Δεύτε νυν ώδας ιερας άνασσαι, Ποσσ ̓ ἀπαλοισι This is but little removed from a boy's first stringing together of Greek phrases. The following short apostrophe, (in the same ode) to Sir William Browne, is much more Grecian in spirit: θανες ώσπερ άλλοι Προσθεν ήρωες, κατέχει δε και σε Νήγρετος ύπνος· Wm. Cole, King's College, 1775 Tweddell's well-known and beautiful ode, on the Studies and Pleasures and Cares of Youth, is the next and assuredly the best Greek composition in the volume: Χαίρε μοι, χαιρ', αυθι, νεανις ώρα, Μορσιμον ἐιγ Ιζανει γαρ πλασιον 'Αδονα τεν, Και Σθένος του μακρα βιβαν, και ούρως This indeed is the language of passion, of genius, and of nature. The Laus Astronomia, by Keate, is a classical, and, as far as the phrase is allowable in speaking of modern Greek, a correct composition. The praise of Newton is worthy of its subject: Δεινα μαν έπραξε σοφος, μέγας δε Θύμος οι μεγ' ἐσσυθ ̓, ὃς ἐππατεσσι Ταν φυσιν τ' ἐναρμόνιον, τεαν θ ̓ ἑπτα —αῤῥον αιγλαν· May the genius of the Cam listen to the call! *Lucem ex septem coloribus conflatam, The address is to the Sun. Richard Richard Ramsden, of Trinity College, in his ode on the Siege of Gibraltar, dated 1783, displays more Grecian knowlege than poetic feeling it is the production of a painstaking scholar : but we do not like the exclamation of the centinel in one of the stanzas ; : Ο σκοπος γέγωνεν, "6 ὁρῶ πατρῶον Και γλαφυραν ναυν Yet the simile, in the previous stanza, of the Eagle encoun tering the Serpent, is certainly Eschylean, if not English. Joseph Goodall (the present Provost of Eton) commemorates the Earthquake and Pestilence in the West Indies, in an ode dated 1781, with much poetic spirit. John Keate appears again, 1795, on the Praise of Commerce: but commerce is a bad inspirer of poetry; and we see nothing in this ode equal to the description in that of Goodall, of the sudden change of the usual calm of a West Indian sea: Αίψα δ' αιθηρ συντεταρακτο ποιίω· κ. τ. λ. This is Promethean, indeed; and, in character with Prometheus, stolen: - but be it remembered that fire was the theft of Prometheus; and he brought it from heaven, and first brought it to earth. Bartholomew Frere, Trinity College, 1798, has a good ode on a stale subject, Britain, and it is consequently full of British feelings; which, had they never been burlesqued by affectation nor profaned by selfishness, we should have been the first to commend, even in their redundancy. William Frere, also of Trinity College, 1797, speaks feelingly on the Devastation of Italy-but such lines as Ιταλοι τρυφῶντες ἐν ἀβροτατι, Μεσικαις χλιδαῖσι φρανας χυθέντες και 16. Το λο -X. are fit only for boys in the upper classes of our public schools. Young men should learn to give something more of peculiarity and force to a common-place picture of manners. J. H. Smyth of Trinity College, 1800, records the death of Tippoo. "Indum sanguineo veluti violaverit ostre Si quis Ebur" for a Greek ode on the death of Tippoo Saib is indeed an anomaly, and might make the proposer of the subject blush. The author of the composition has performed his part very creditably, though without much vigour. REV. DEC. 1810. B b The The misfortunes of Swisserland are lamented by Cornwall Bayley (Christ's College, 1803,) in rather lamentable strains, although we occasionally discover an expression of a superior style. The death of the Duke D'Enghien excited the pathetic muse of William Edward Pretyman Tomline. We confess that we cannot endure such a word as 'Eygiavos, to mention no other barbarisms; though perhaps we are fastidious. We object even to NEUTWVOS in Keate's ode. A periphrasis (with all its weakness and want of effect) is the whole which, we think, can be allowed to the modern antiques, in their Pelasgic variations of proper names. Edward Maltby, of Pembroke, 1791, is employed on the same subject with Robert Smith; the renunciation of the vain pretensions of the Spaniards, and the end of their assumed monopoly of the seas. His ode is classical, animated, and patriotic. It is exactly such a composition as was likely to have been produced by its distinguished author. An ode by E.V. Blomfield, of Caius College, is printed among the Prize Poems which gained Sir Wm. Browne's Medals; although this ode gained nothing but private remuneration, and the liberty of public recitation, from the patronage of the Vice Chancellor for the time being: an honour which is valuable to the candidate in question, and to the liberal feelings of the Vice Chancellor. We doubt, however, whether any sound policy directed the creation of this secondary sort of distinction, this imperium in imperio, in the distribution of the prizes. "Non jam prima peto Menestreus" ment. is a sentiment which we never admired, when borrowed from the Eneid, and misapplied to purposes of general encourage"Aut Cæsar aut nullus" is a nobler spur to emulation. Another Greek ode by the same author, which legitimately shared the prize, follows. Its subject is the Death of Porson, and heartily do we participate (as all the literary world must participate) in the feelings of regret which suggested this motte to the writer: στενομεν μεμνημένοι Ηβης ἐκείνης, νου τ' ἐκείνου, και φρενών (Cratylus, apud Stobæum, Tit. 50.) He must be taken, of course, in the most general sense : but the memory and the praise of such a man are always young, always warmly celebrated : ΤΟΙΟΣΔΕ ΚΑΙ ΣΥ ΓΕΝΟΙΟ· as Mr. Blomfield emphatically though quaintly concludes his performance. The |