A Friend to candid Criticifm, will fee in this month's publication that we are ftrongly, and not timidly of his opinion. To the question of our correfpondent at Hertford, respects ing Poftlethwaite's Dictionary, we reply, that we know of no other publication, containing the articles he mentions, in the fame form. LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. We are very happy in being able to inform the public, that Mr. Cumberland will foon produce an important book on the Evidences of Religion, entitled Plain Reafons for believing in Chrifiianity. We are authorized to announce the immediate publication of Mr. Goxe's Hiftorical Tour in Monmouthshire, which has been long expected. The fame author will alfo produce very fpeedily a new edition of his Travels in Switzerland, with an introductory chapter, and hiftorical notes, relative to the late Revolution, illuftrated by a map of the new divifion. Mr. Nares is about to form a volume of Tracts, which he has before published separately, and fome original materials. Mrs. Trimmer will foon publifh an enlarged edition of the Economy of Charity, adapted to the prefent ftate of charitable institutions. Mr. S. Shaw is now finifhing at the prefs, the fecond portion of his Hiftory of Staffordshire. LITERARY SUGGESTION. Thofe literary men who exert their talents in forming useful compilations, would, in our opinion, render a very acceptable fervice to the public, if they would compile a fort of Pocket Dictionary of remarkable particulars of Nature and Art: comprifing heights and dimenfions of remarkable buildings; heights of mountains; lengths of rivers from their fources; Ipan of arches; length of canals and aqueducts; circumference of lakes; ditto of parks; heights of columns and obelisks, &c. &c. for general and eafy reference. ERRATUM. P. 149, fourth line from the bottom, for 51. 5s, read 11. 15. THE BRITISH CRITIC, For MARCH, 1801. fperare falutem Aufus, et afflictis melius confidere rebus. VIRGIL. Ev'n yet, we hope returning health to blefs, ART. I. Richard the Firft, a Poem; in Eighteen Books. By Sir James Bland Burges, Bart. Two Volumes. Royal 8vo. 18s. Egerton. 1801. WHEN we confider the acknowledged difficulties that op pofe the Epic Poet, and the pride which every nation takes in its fucceffes of this kind, above all other literary claims, it seems not unreasonable to expect, that the efforts of ingenious men, to atchieve this nobleft palm, fhould be received with peculiar favour and indulgence. Experience, however, fhows a very contrary temper in the public, which is cold, illhumoured, and averfe to countenance or fanction fuch pretenfions; and never, in fact, admits an Epic Writer to his degrees and rank upon Parnaffus, till urged and compelled to do fo, by the general fuffrage of acknowledged judges. The caufes of this apparent contradiction may be traced without much difficulty. A long poem is not in itself an attractive object; and it requires perhaps all the ftimulus of a well-established reputation, to Tupport the common reader through the task of the perufal. Poetry, generally taken up as the amufement of a leisure moment, becomes formidable when it threatens to demand the R BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XVII. MARCH, 1801, atten attention of many hours; and indolence, the most prevalent of all difpofitions, with respect to books, feeks to fence itself with all poffible excuses, before it will allow the propriety of beginning fuch a ftudy. It immediately occurs that, with refpect to the poet, the chances are very greatly against complete fuccefs; and any paltry prejudice refpecting the writer or his former works, or against new adventurers in general, if his powers be yet untried, appears fuflicient to decide the point, that here the great defideratum cannot be expected. The book is therefore thrown afide; or it is viewed imperfectly and jealoufly, with an eye prepared to catch at any trivial blemishes, and a mind difpofed to make objections at all hazards, fo as to find, if poflible, a plea for fummary condemnation. It alfo flatters the vanity, more than it offends the good-nature, of the generality of readers, to despise the most laborious effort of ambitious ingenuity. It is fomething confiderable even to attempt an Epic Poet; and he who can cry down, or ridicule the work, or the author, feels for the moment an imaginary fuperiority, He faves his trouble, he exalts himself; and he punishes what he confiders as prefumption, at no expence but that of a little wanton injuftice. So fares the Epic adventurer with the world at large. Among To them the establishment of his poets it is ftill worse. claims will give not only trouble, but humiliation. If he fucceeds, he erects a kind of fovereignty among them, to which they must hereafter bow. Depend upon it, they will prove him, if poffible, an ufurper. They want no impertinent intruder to stand above them all; and with the fpirit, becaufe with the pride of Republicans, they will try their utmost kill at levelling. As the feelings of the multitude lead to neglect, fo thofe of rivals produce attack, which eventually counteracts the other; and, if the work has ftamina to bear the brunt, is greatly in its favour. But woe to the unhappy author, if they find his poem vulnerable. The fellow feelings of a fraternity embarked in fimilar purfuits will not much protect him. Flebit, et infignis totâ cantabitur urbe. The faults and blemishes of his offspring will be expofed to public notice, his high pretenfions will be overthrown, and his future labours will in vain attempt to excite the least attention. Such was the fate of Blackmore; but a very different candidate for fame at prefent demands our notice. Sir James Burges, long employed in a very bufy office of political truft*, demonftrated even then that he had a poetical * Under Secretary of State for the Foreign Department. fpirit, fpirit, not to be depreffed by the moft inaufpicious fituation; the daily, nightly, and almoft overwhelming toil of diplomatic bufinefs. His P em on the Birth and Triumph of Love, founded on fome elegant defigns of the Princefs Elizabeth, and written with almoft extemporaneous quickness, gave undoubted proof of fuch command of poetical language, and fuch fertility of poetical ideas, accompanied by confummate skill in verfification, as are very feldom met with. In the prefent Poem, the author has again felected the stanza of Spenfer, as the vehicle of his narrative and descriptions. The very complicated and laborious ftructure of this ftanza would have deterred moft writers from employing it in a work of great extent. We have been told that Dr. Beattie defifted from the compofition of his Minstrelt, without completing his plan, chiefly from the difficulty he found in constructing the stanza he had used. Spenfer, who wrote fo much in it, had probably acquired a facility in forming it; though the liberties he fometimes takes imply a diftrefs for the neceffary rhymes, which must have been, attended with fome vexation. Sir J. Burges appears most completely to have vanquished the difficulty. He diverfifies his paufes with every poffible variety that nine lines can admit; rhymes he seems to have at perfect command; and, in point of fact, we know that he constructs this meafure as rapidly, and with as little embarraffment, as any poet can poffibly proceed with the most familiar and easy metre. It remains to confider the propriety of employing this ftanza in a Poem of the Heroic or Epic kind; for it is not fufficient that the poet writes it with ease, if it be not proper to be used. In allegorical writing, we confidered it as fanctioned by the example of Spenfer; but the Fairy Queen has the form alfo of Heroic narrative, though the agents are allegorical perfonages. So much for authority. With refpect to its intrinfic merit, the fonorous march of the concluding Alexandrine, has certainly a claim for admiration on every poetical ear. It has a majefty and richness, particularly in forming the clofe of a fentence, which Dryden (and what greater authority can we have ?) thought defirable to be introduced occaGionally into the Heroic Couplet. The preceding part of the ftanza, by the great variety of paufe which it admits, certainly compenfates amply for the apparent fameness of its form, and, P. 475. * See the Brit. Crit, vol. vii, + Tais Poem was accidentally omitted in our enumeration, loc. cit, P. 475. R 2 when when once the cadence has become familiar to the ear, is by no means unpleafing in its recurrence. These things being granted, as perhaps they will in general, after any degree of candid trial, the manifeft advantage to a modern poet of writing fuch a work in a measure, which removes the first idea of competition with Milton, Dryden, and Pope, which gives his Poem an additional appearance of novelty, and places it on a ground of its own, is furely beyond controverfy. A choice of measure altogether injudicious, could not indeed be compenfated by these advantages; and Gondibert is a monument of failure, with refpectable talents, from want of judgment in this point, and of a general correctness in tafte. But a meafure which has recommended itfelf, at various times, to fome of our most eminent writers, cannot be denied to have intrinfic merits, if the application only be judicious. The fubject of this Poem, which the author has not styled Epic, but which is fo in its matter and conftruction, is placed in a period already confecrated to poetic ufe by Taffo; and is brought home to the patriotic feelings of Britons, by being limited to the fortunes and atchievements of their famous hero, Caur-de-Lion. To him, Sir J. B. has attributed, not only the courage which is implied in that appellation, but all heroic and kingly virtues. Nor is he without confiderable warrant of hiftorical teftimony for this character. Taking the subject in the most general view, it may be ftated to be the struggles of virtue and piety, perfonifjed in Richard, against human and infernal machinations." Concerning the critical rigour of epic unity, we shall not undertake to difpute. When we reflect by what laboured explanations that kind of unity is attributed to the Odyfley and the Eneid, we cannot conceive that the fame of a modern poet can, in any degree, depend upon being more careful in that refpect, than the greatest masters of his art. The unity which makes one confiftent body of the whole, having its proper opening, continuation, and close, is quite fufficient for us; as it was, without doubt, for our great mafter, Ariftotle. If any modern critics have demanded an unity more rigorous, than he found in the venerable exemplar from which he formed his rules, we reject fuch inferior authority; nor on the Greek critic himself do we lean, any further than as he appears to be in perfect union with found reafon. It is, however, in fome degree a fault, in the opening of the Poem before us, that the exact point of its commencement is not fufficiently defined. The alarm and combination of the infernal powers, feems to be occafioned by the failing of Richard for the Holy Land; yet, in a few ftanzas, we come to events which were fubfequent to his return to Europe. |