If the world be worth' thy | win'ning, Take the good' the | god's provide thee. Here the king is reprefented as finking under the delicious fenfations, which love and wine had occafioned, and his whole foul at length wrapped in the pleafing delirium. To roufe him from this state, and awaken the more violent paffions, the mighty master once more changes his numbers to the pufhing iambic, and impetuous anapæst. Now ftrike | the gól | den ly're | again. A loú der yet and yet a lou | der strain'. ling péal | of thun ́der. Hark! hark | the horrid found As awak'd from the dead', And amáz'd he ftáres | around. Revenge revenge | Timótheus cries! See the fúries arise! See the fnakes that they réar, How they hifs in their hair, And the fparkles that flash | from their eyes! "To point out all the beauties arifing from the admirable compo fition of this ode, with regard to its numbers alone, would require a volume. The inftances I have produced, are fufficient to fhew what advantage our lyric poetry might receive, if our writers would follow the example of Dryden, in obferving the decorum of numbers, and varying their metre fuitably to their fubject. And yet, I do not know that any attempt of that kind has been made, except by Mr. Pope; who has profeffedly entered the lifts with Dryden, in an ode compofed on the fame fubject; and in which, he has only exposed his own want of fkill in the general principles of numbers, and his great inferiority to Dryden in that refpect. His chief object seems to be, to emulate Dryden at least in the variety of his metre; but then he varies only for the fake of varying, and does not seem to know how to adapt thefe changes to his fubject. Where he means to excite images of terrour, his metre has quite the air of burlesque. Sad Orpheus fought his confort loft; Th' inexorable gates were barr'd, And nought was feen, and nought was heard But dreadful gleams, Difmal fcreams, Fires that glow, Shrieks of woe, Sullen moans, Hollow groans, And cries of tortur'd ghofts. This is the very kind of metre which Arbuthnot judiciously chose for his Lilliputian ode to Gulliver. In amaze, Loft I gaze! Can my eyes Reach thy fize? On thy hand Let me ftand, &c. When he fpeaks of the effect which the mufic of Orpheus had on the infernal deities, he falls into the metre used in the melancholy ditties of the old English ballads. He fung, and hell confented And gave him back the fair. And to point out the exultation of mufic, upon this extraordinary triumph over death and over hell, he falls into the most comic movement that can be used, the amphibrachic, Thus fong could prevail O'er death and o'er hell, A con queft how hard and | how glórious! Tho' fate had faft bound her With Styx' nine | times round her. Yet múfic and love were | victórious. In defcribing the deep melancholy, and gloomy defpair of Orpheus, upon his fecond lofs of Eurydice, partly by his double rhimes, and partly by his Lilliputian lines, he turns the whole into burlesque; Now under hanging mountains, Befide the fall of fountains, All alone, Unheard, unknown And calls her ghost For ever, ever, ever loft This is exactly of a piece with a lamentable love-ditty of an Irish bard*. When in the meadows that are green I am feen Suppofed to be Mr. Sheridan himself, who is almoft as good a poet as he is an @rator. 003 Eurydice Eurydice the woods, Eurydice the floods, Eurydice the rocks, and hollow mountains rung. He feems refolved to outdo Virgil in making five repetitions of the name of Eurydice, inftead of three. Indeed, in the whole of the ode, he does not feem to have hit upon any one paffage that can be called good. Where he has moft laboured, and where, by fuperficial readers, he might be thought to have fucceeded beft, the expresion is puerile, and founded upon a falfe principle of his own, laid down in his Effay on Criticifm The found must seem an echo to the fenfe which differs from the true rule, laid down by Lord RofcommonThe found should be a comment on the fense For the expreffion in numbers arifing from the former, is to the lat ter, what punning is to true wit." With becoming candour, we hope we may now be permitted to take leave of Mr. Sheridan's Art of Reading VERSE. ART. IV. Travels in Afia Minor: or, an Account of a Tour made at the Expence of the Society of Dilettanti. By Dr. Chandler, Concluded.* Our readers may remember that we left this learned and entertaining traveller, and his companions, fearching in vain after claffical antiquities in the island of Scio. From that ifland they embarked in a boat manned with Greeks, and arrived foon after at Smyrna; where they were politely received by the British Conful, and fhewn, among other curious objects, two live camelions, one of which was about the fize of a large lizard; of which Dr, Chandler gives the following account. "These were confined each on a long narrow piece of board fufpended between two ftrings, and had for fecurity twisted their tails feveral times round. We were much amufed with the changes in the colour of these reptiles, and with feeing them feed. A fly, deprived of its wings, being put on the board, the camelion foon perceives its prey, and untwirling its tail, moves toward it very gently and deliberately. When within distance, it fuddenly feizes the poor infect, darting forward its tongue, a small long tube furnished with a glutinous matter at the end, to which the fly adheres. This is done fo nimbly and quietly, that we did not wonder it remained unobferved for ages, while the creature was idly fuppofed to fubfift on air. Of Smyrna, our author gives an account fo little differing from the well-known relations of other travellers, that we find little worth extract; except the claffical reader fhould conceive his remark on the long trowfers worn by the Ladies worthy notice, viz. that they are mentioned in one of the fragments of See page 341, Vol. I. The indifpofition of the reviewer, to whom this work and fome others were referred, hath occafioned this delay in their conclufion. 6 Sappho. Sappho.-The plague breaking out at Smyrna, our itinerants directed their courfe along the coaft of Ionia; attended by a Swifs and Armenian, fervants, headed by a Janiffary. In the profecution of their journey, however, it appears that the ignorance of the modern natives obliged them to have recourse to the writings of the claffics, as furer guides to direct them in their refearches. Being arrived at Vourla near the ancient Clazomene, they enquired of course for the veftiges of the ruined city. "When finding, fays Dr. Chandler, our guide ignorant and at a lofs which way to go, we adopted the furer direction of ancient hiftory; remembering, that the Clazomenians, to be more fecure from the Perfians, had fettled in an island, which, by command of Alexander, was afterwards changed into a peninfula by the addition of a mole. We croffed the plain of Vourla, flanting toward the fea, and foon difcovered this monument alfo of that great mind, which delighted in correcting or fubduing nature by filling up or forming paths for the deep; which here ftill bore vifible marks of his royal pleafure, and raged, as it were indignant, but in vain, against the barrier, which he had appointed. "The mole was two ftadia or a quarter of a mile in length, but we were ten minutes in croffing it: the waves, which were impelled by a ftrong inbat, breaking over in a very formidable manner, as high as the bellies of our horfes The width, as we conjectured, was about thirty feet. On the weft fide, it is fronted with a thick ftrong wall, fome pieces appearing above the water. On the oppofite is a mound of loofe pebbles, fhelving as a buttress, to withstand the furious affaults of ftorm and tempeft. The upper works have been demolished, and the materials, a few large rough ftones excepted; re. moved. Beyond Clazomene the peninfula becoming very mountainous, with narrow and difficult paffes, affords many places of refuge, inacceffible, or eafily defended. Hence the Kara-borniotes, or inhabitants of the fouthern cape of the gulf, were long infamous as pirates and robbers, and had the general character of a very bad people. We were now told, that their manners were changed, and their dif pofition lefs ferocious and inhuman; that they attend to the culture of the vine and the management of the filk-worm, and frequent the market of Smyrna with the produce. But though the manners of the Turks in general, inhabiting the coafts and living near the great towns are civilifed of late years, thofe of the inland inhabitants are still in many parts wild and infolent, particularly to fuch Chriftians as commerce or curiofity induces to vifit them. Of the difficulty and danger attending a peregrination through Turky, we shall select two or three inftances more; forbearing to quote many of our author's accurate defcriptions of the ftate of the antique remains he vifited; the fimple mentioning of the names of the principal of which is all the limits of our work will allow us. -In proceeding from Vourla the road and accommodations of our travellers appear to have been but indifferent. "We fet out from Vourla early in the morning, and in an hour, after crofing a fmall promontory, came to the bottom of a deep bay, which, with an island in it, is almoft land-locked, lying immediately within the cape. We then afcended a ridge of mount Mimas; and paffing a ftream, entered on a rugged narrow track between very lofty cliffs and by the fide of a watercourfe frightfully fteep. We were engaged in this trait four hours, our baggage-horfes falling, or being jammed with their burthens, where the rocks projected. At length we arrived in view of a plain deep-funk among the hills, which furround it. Before us was a gray ridge feen at Smyrna; and a little on the left, a top of the island Scio; behind us were the two white conical fummits of mount Corax, called the The Brothers, which serves as a fea-direction in navigating the gulph. We descended to Cerhardam, a Turkish village, where we alighted about three in the afternoon, We had propofed paffing the night here, as our men and horfes were weary, but could get neither lodging nor corn. "After dining beneath a tree, we continued our journey across a ridge to Cadoagi, a fmall place near an hour farther on. Here we had our tent pitched for the first time within an inclosure by a cottage, and flept in it. Our bedding was a fmall carpet, mattress, and coverler. Each had by his fide a gun, fword, and a pair of loaded piftols. The Swifs guarded the mouth of the tent. The nights were as yet cold, and our janizary was provided with a cloke of a dark colour, fhaggy, and very thick, made without a feam, with a cape of rather cowl for his head. Wrapped in this, he lay down like Diomed in his bull-skin, in the open air, with his piftol and fabre by him, and his gun in his hand. Our other attendants were likewife difperfed, mostly on the ground, round about the tent, armed as by day; and one of the Armenians watched the horses, which were faltened to stakes with their faddles on." From Clazomene our travellers proceeded to Erythra, which they found in the fame ftate of defolation. From Erythræ they continued their route to Teos, which afforded a fimilar fcenc, From Teos they went to the mountain Hypfile and the once famous fountain of Lebedus.-Of the perils they encountered in their departure from this place, we have the following defcription. "Our guide mistook the track, and conducted us an hour out of our way: We paffed through lanes, olive-groves, and corn. In two hours and an half we were fuddenly stopped by a wide and very turbid river, defcending from between mount Gallefus or the Aleman, and the fouthern extremity of mount Corax, the range, which had continued on our left hand from near Teos. It is impoffible perhaps to conceive greater vifible rapidity, the water hurrying by with fo precipitous and head-long a courfe, it was gone like an arrow from a bow. Our guide, after fome hesitation, entered the ftream, which proved fhallow, reaching only to the belly of his horfe. We were apprehenfive a low mule, heavily laden with baggage, would be car ried away, but it struggled through, and we all got over fafe. We tarried the night at a village an hour farther on, high on the mountain-fide, and overlooking a rich plain and the fea to the island Samos. |