Semblent en treffaillant dans leurs frayeurs extremês
Craindre leurs propres yeux et rougir d'elles-mêmes;
Tandis que les fuivant fous le criftal de l'eau
Un faune du feuillage entr'ouvre le rideau."
* Vain all the labours of defcriptive art,
Unless your glowing pictures warm the heart;
As figures animate your landscape green,
Let men, let women fill your country scene.
Yes, it is man that interefts man, the most,
Chief ornament of earth! creation's boaft!
Where man is not, the poet only makes
A fplendid temple, which its God forfakes.
But with him motion, joy, and pleasure live,
Without him languish, and with him revive.
Upon the mountain's brow, and on the plain,
We feek the fhepherd, or the harvest train,
And in the valley's clofe fequefter'd scene,
Where runs the ftream along its margin green,
Let gentle nymphs their naked charms confide,
Timid and blushing, to th' embracing tide;
Curtain'd by pendant foliage, as they lave,
But half conceal'd beneath the crystal wave.
Our limits will not allow us to indulge our tafte in printing fuch large extracts from this admirable Poem as we should be inclined to make; nor indeed are large extracts very neceffary from a work that must foon be in the hands of every man of tafte. But there are two paffages towards the conclufion, of fuch exquifite elegance, that, notwithstanding their length, we cannot refrain from quoting them.
"Il eft d'autres fécrets; quelquefois à nos yeux
D'aimable fouvenirs embélliffent les lieux.
J'aimé en vos vers ce riche et brillant payfage
Mais fi vous ajoutez ;-" la de mon prémier age
Coulerent les momens; la je fentis s'ouvrir
Mes yeux à la lumière et mon cœur a plaifir."
Alors vous reveillez un fouvenir que j'aimé
Alors mon cœur révole au moment ou moi-même,
J'ai revu les beaux lieux qui m'ont donné le jour,
O Champs de la Limagne! O fortuné fejour!
* A friend of the writer of this article has attempted a tranflation of the above paffage, as well as of the others which we have selected for infertion. Thefe tranflations are now published, with no hope more ambitious than that of giving fome faint idea of the beauty of the original, to those who are not familiarly converfant with the French language.
Hélas, j'y révolois après vingt ans d'absence:
A peine le Mont-d'or, levant fon front immenfe,
Dans un lointain obfcur apparut a mes yeux
Tout mon cœur treffaillit; et la beauté des lieux
Et les riches côteaux, et la plaine riante,
Mes yeux ne voyoient rien; mon ame impatiente
Des rapides courfiers accufant la lenteur
Appeloit, imploroit ce lieu cher à mon cœur.
Je le vis; je fentis une joie inconnue
J'allois, J'errois, partout ou je portois la vue
En foule s'élévoient des fouvenirs charmans.
Voici l'arbre témoin de mes amusemens:
C'est ici que Zephir de fa jaloufe haleine
Effacoit mes palais deffinés fur l'arêne :
C'eft la que le caillou lancé dans le ruiffeau
Gliffoit, fautoit, gliffoit, et fautoit de nouveau.
Un rien m'intéreffit. Mais avec quelle ivreffe
J'embraffois, je baignois de larmes de tendreffe,
Le vieillard qui jadis guida mes pas tremblans
La femme dont le lait nourrit mes premiers ans,
Et le fage paiteur qui forma mon enfance!
Souvent je m'écriois: témoins de ma naiffance
Témoins de mes beaux jours, de mes premiers defirs,
Beaux lieux! qu'avez vous fait de mes premiers plaifirs?
Mais loin de mon fujet çe doux fujet m'entraine.
Vous donc peintres des champs animez chaque fcene
Préfentez nous au lieu d'un fite inanimé,
Les lieux que l'on aima, ceux ou l'on fut aimé.
D'autres fois du contrafte effayant la puiffance
Des afiles du vice a çeux de l'innocence
Oppofez les tableaux terribles ou touchans,
Et des maux de la ville embelliffez les champs.
Du haut de ces côteaux d'ou Paris nous découvre
Ses temples, fes palais, fes domes, et fon Louvre,
Sur ces grands monumens arretant vos regards,
Là regnent dites vous l'opulence et les arts!
Là le cifcau divin, la célette harmonie,
Les écrits immortels ou s'empreint le génie
Amufent noblement la reine des cités.
Mais bientôt oubliant fes trompeufes beautés
Là regnent, direz vous, l'orgueil et la baffeffe,
Les maux de la mifère et ceux de la richeffe :
Là fans ceffe attirés des bouts de l'univers
Fermentent à la fois tous les vices divers;
Là fombre et dédaignant les plaifirs légitimes,
Là degout mene au vice, et l'ennui veut des crimes;
Là le noir fuicide égarant fa raifon
Aiguife le poignard et verfe le poifon :
Là regne des Laïs la cohorte effrenée,
Honte du célibat, fléau de l'hy menée.
La dans les murs infects, afiles dévorans
La charité cruelle entaffe les mourans :
La des fripons gagés furveillent leurs complices,
Et le repôs public eft fondé fur des vices:
La le pale joueur, dans fon antre infernal
D'un bras déféfperé lance le dé fatal.
Que d'enfans au berceau delaiffés par leur mère !
Combien n'ont jamais vu le fourire d'un père !
Que de crimes cachés! Que d'obfcures douleurs !
Combien coule de fang! Combien coulent de pleurs!"
But well the pencil paints, when to our eyes
It bids fair fcenes of pleasures paft arife;
I love the landscape which your verfe pourtrays;
But when you add, "Here pafs'd my early days,
Here op'd my eyes to light, my heart to joy,
These were my haunts, a gay and carelefs boy!"
Then fancy gives me back thy fields Auvergne,
Bids me thy awful brow, Mont D'or, difcern;
As after twice ten years of abfence past,
Half veil'd in fhadowy clouds I faw thee laft,
With rapture faw again each well-known scene,
The wooded hills! the vales of fmiling green!
Though fcarce obferv'd, for my impatient foul
Outruns my courfers to the wifh'd-for goal.
I faw it! and a joy, unknown before,
Swells at my heart; I run each object o'er,
I wander long, where'er I turn my eyes
A croud of tender recollections rise.
There is the tree, beneath whofe ample shade
I oft have seen by breath of zephyrs fade,
With no fmall grief, my palaces of fand;
And there along the ftream my little hand
Has often hurl'd the pebble, smooth and round,
To fee it bound, now glide, and now rebound,
Skimming the furface of the glaffy tide,
While I exulting ftood, and watch'd befide.
But with what language fhall I feek t'impart
The joy I felt, when, clafping to my heart,
Diffolv'd in tears, her, on whose tender breaft
My infant frame was nourish'd and carefs'd;
And him, the good old man! who us'd to guide
My infant fteps when tott'ring by his fide.
When, to my eager fight, at laft appears
The reverend paftor of my early years,
Impaffion'd, I exclaim, "Scenes of my birth,
My first defires, my hours of thoughtless mirth!
Oh! tell me, beauteous fcenes, where fhall I find
Thofe dear, first pleasures of my youthful mind ?"
No more-these tender thoughts bear me afide,
But to my fubject now my pen I guide.
BRIT. GRIT, VOL. XVII, JAN. 1801.
Ye, who would fing of country life, muft give
Not only fcenes where Trees and Cattle live,
But those where you have lov'd and been belov'd;
'Tis with fuch painting that the foul is mov'd.
In pow'rful contraft, and in colours bold,
The ways of virtue and of vice unfold,
In terrible or touching pictures prove
The town how tainted! and how
When first imperial Paris we furvey,
Bright'ning the fplendour of meridian day,
As from her circling hills we wond'ring gaze,
The mind at once inftinctive homage pays.
"Oh! here," we cry, "reign opulence and arts,
And all the charms that polifh'd life imparts;
Here th' immortal works of genius fhine,
Paintings and fculpture! and the fong divine !"
But, ah! too foon thefe purple vifions fade,
And thou, the queen of cities, wrapt in shade!
For here, alas! do we not alfo find
How pride and meanness taint alike the mind?
How here, from the wide earth's remotest bound,
Comprefs'd, fermenting, every vice is found?
While mere fatiety demands new crimes,
And on from vice to vice faftidious climbs.
Here too, at once licentious and uncouth,
The bane of marriage, and the fcourge of youth,
What shameless bands of prostitutes are seen!
Of hearts ferocious, and unlovely mien:
Here Mercy's felf like Mifery appears,
And cruel Charity her prifons rears:
Where foul contagion reigns in dreadful fway,
And gafping victims heap the loathfome way:
Here Suicide in gloomy madness lours,
Sharpens the dagger, or the poifon pours.
See the pale Gamefter in his midnight cave,
Hurling the fatal die, defpairing rave.
How many piteous plaints our ears affail,
From babes forfaken, who inceffant wail.
How much obfcure diftrefs! and fecret guilt!
How many tears are fhed! what blood is spilt!
Nothing can be more happy than the two examples which the author has chofen to illuftrate his precepts in this delightful paffage. They have afforded him an opportunity of difplaying the verfatility of his genius. In delivering rules, he is clear and inftructive; plain without negligence, and precife without pedantry or harfhnefs. In the defcription of his vifit to the place of his birth, his verfes have all the foftness and fimplicity of thofe fentiments, from which they feem fpontaneously and artlessly to flow. On the first glance of
the magnificence of Paris, he rifes to a more fwelling harmony, and indulges in a luxury of language, fuited to the grandeur and pomp of that proud capital. But when he drags to light the vice and mifery which are hid beneath that failacious magnificence, he arms himself with all the authority and feverity of moral indignation, and pours forth his honeft invectives against corruption and crimes, with all the vigour and fervour of fatire. In the courfe of two pages, he paffes from the elegance and tenderness of Virgil to the terrible majefty of Juvenal. Yet fuch is the artful ease of his tranfitions, fo foit are the bands by which all thefe apparently incongruous ideas are linked together, that the mind, without effort or difficulty, pafles from one fubject to another, which feems the moft remote; from the rules of defcriptive poetry, to the feelings of the poet when he revifits the place of his birth; from tendernefs to fatire; from the beauties of the country to the vices of the town. More fweet defcription of the charms of nature, or more poignant invective against the crimes of men, is fcarcely to be found in poetry.
M. l'Abbé Delille has imitated, in this Canto, an exquifite paffage of Horace, of which we shall fubjoin the original and the imitations, both by this author and Boileau, that it may be seen how gracefully the Abbé Delille can copy Horace, and how far he has furpaffed one of the greatest of French poets. O rus, quando te afpiciam, quandoque licebit
Nunc veterum libris, nunc fomno et inertibus horis,
Ducere folicita jucunda oblivia vitæ,
Oblitufque meorum, oblivifcendus et illis.
O fortuné fejour! O champs aimés des cieux
Que pour jamais foulant vos pres delicieux,
Ne puis-je ici fixer ma course vagabonde,
Et connu de vous seuls, oublier tout le monde. BOILEAU.
"Hélas! pourquoi faut'il que celui dont les chants
Enfeignent l'art d'orner et d'habiter les champs,
Ne puiffe encore jouir des objects qu'il adore!
O champs! O mes amis quand vous verrai-je encore.
Quand pourrai-je tantôt goûtant un doux fommeil,
Et de bons vieux auteurs amufant mon réveil.
Tantôt ornant fans art mes ruttiques démeures,
Tantôt laiffant couler mes indolentes heures;
Boire l'heureux oubli des foins tumultueux,
Ignorer les humains, et vivre ignore d'eux." DELILLE.
Ah! why in vain the mufe has lent her pow'r,
To make me fondly love my native bow'r;
Taught me to ornament its various scene,
To tafte with blifs the rural life ferene.
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