is wanting; and the machinery and classical allusions of Dr. Ogilvie have the same resemblance to the verse of Homer and Milton, which a leaden statue, fresh from Piccadilly, bears to the sculpture of Phidias or Praxiteles.

For this inferiority, we do not mean to blame the author: we are truly sorry that our duty obliges us to point out his poetical defects; and we should certainly have received much more pleasure from reading as well as from criticizing his work, if it had been intitled to higher commendation. We have industriously looked for passages of merit, and we shall not fail to produce some of those which gave us more satisfaction than the rest.

The invocation, at the opening of the poem, affords a good specimen of the respectable mediocrity which we have ascribed to this writer's talents:

Thou Power ethereal, by whatever name
Hail'd in celestial climes, by Heav'n ordain'd
To guard the seat of empire, to exalt,
O'er other lands, Britannia's envied Isle!
Oh! from the ragged cliff, whence thy wide ken
O'erlooks the world of waters, and surveys
Th' Atlantic's tributary waves; incline

Thine ear propitious!-When th' Eternal call'd
From night, this rude orb, with umbrageous woods.
O'erspread, and roughen'd with the cloud-wrapt hill,
Thou saw'st the deep recoiling, as the cliffs
Of Albion tower'd amid th' investing main,
Sublimely eminent! Thou to the Sun
Beheldst her mountains flaming, and her vales
Teeming with copious pastures. But to rouze
Her sons to godlike deeds; to fix the reign
Of Science, Glory, Freedom, Wealth, and Right,
Amidst her better times, while yet the Queen
domain;
Of Nations flourish'd, in her great
These were thy nobler tasks.-Indulgent, now
Attend! for, rising to her theme, the Spirit
resound
Divine essays to bid her song

Down the long vale, where Time's evolving forms
Lie wrapt in dim futurity :-to Man

In ages yet unborn; by Thee inspir'd,

O'er climes remote she spreads her Country's fame.

6

Upborne by Thee, she darts her steady gaze

O'er periods lessening in extended range,

And through the shade that wraps the first of days
Beholds a Desert, where the busy throng

Now swarms. The monarch of the waste she eyes,
The wild wolf raging with the lust of prey,
Here, on his solitary walk; the wild

Now still, and to his hunger-prompted howl

Anon

Anon re-echoing. There a mightier race
She sees, surpassing Albion's native sons;
Gigantic shapes, that, in the bull's rough hide,
Or shagged vestments of the brouzing goat,
O'ershading ruthless hearts, and grasping fierce
Some oak's broad fragment, or unshapen mass
Of rude and knobbed ore; along the wood
Stride grim and horrible. Rouz'd by their tread
Wolves darting rapid to the cavern's mouth
Keen with the rage of hunger, and intent
To bear some morsel to their famish'd young;
Eyeing the grizzly savage as he moves,
Gnash their white tusks, and lashing in their
The rock, and howling, seek their inmost den.'

rage

We shall now introduce one of Dr. Ogilvie's supernatural personages:

Though back recoiling, as he eyed the Power
Divine; the hell-born Demon yet appear'd
In mortal shape, and near Androgeus stood
A form stupendous, breathing horrid war,
And striking terror with amaze in all!
Black were his arms, yet cast a livid glare
Around. His shield, impenetrable orb,
O'ershaded half the nations as he moved,
Bloating the flaming noon! Dim o'er his helm
Nodded the sable plumage! Fiery rays

Shot from his eyes, and flitting o'er his sword

The blue gleam trembled, as from sulphurous ore.

From this sulphureous light, the apparition might perhaps be deemed by the author characteristically national. Bloating the noon is not an English expression; nor is our word bloated, which has a sense different from that intended by the author, ever used but as an adjective. Perhaps Dr. O. meant to write • blotting the noon,' in allusion to Milton's sublime expression of radiant files dazzling the moon.—A simile, in the same book, was evidently written with a view to Milton's imagery:

As when two clouds, with elemental flame
Impregn'd, on heaven's aerial concave mix
In night portentous; and the solemn peal,
Slow rolling o'er the void, proclaims their war
By dreadful intervals! while all beneath

Shakes at each blast, and mortals deem the Lord
Of Nature rising in his wrath :'-

The reader may compare this passage with that of our divine poet:

"As when two black cloud:

With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on

Over the Caspian, then stand front to front,
Hov'ring a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air:"-

We shall next transcribe another of Dr. Ogilvie's similes, from a battle-scene:

As when the North from all her mountains pours
Abroad the tempest; on resounding wings
It comes; and loosening from the shagged rock
A time-worn fragment, hanging o'er the verge,
In thunder hurls it to the tide :-Such seem'd
Thy strength, Romerus, and before thine arm
Thus sunk the nations! Nor in stature less,
Nor less in acts the giant King appear'd:
Wielding the massy oak, he clear'd the path
Amid the bands; and void of conduct, aim'd
By might to conquer, and ungovern'd sway.'

This passage is certainly intitled to some credit: but the author has lessened its effect by representing his giant, in the succeeding lines, as swearing at the head of his troops :blaspheming heaven.'

Another simile, in the same book, appears not very illustrative of its object; though, in point of mere language, it is one of the best written passages in the poem:

As when the sun on India's favour'd clime
Pours his first rays, the feeble stars that gild
Heav'n's arch, in darkness veil their lucid orbs;
Nor from the shores of Java or Tridore,
While yet the western hemisphere lies wrapt
In night, are seen the solar globes remote,
That lighten other worlds; all by one sun
Suffused, or deeply shaded: thus the rout,
But late so dreadful, from Locrinus' eye
Shrunk back; nor other than that hero seem'd
of war.'
To rule, and to direct the rage

The following lines are not undeserving of praise:
But He, the spirit celestial, from her birth
Ordain'd to guide this wanderer through the maze
Of life; whose hand had held, in many a change,
Th' impending peril from its aim, beheld

His charge with heedful eye. Soft on his wings,
That hover'd o'er the space, he caught the dews
Of night; the noxious vapours as they rose,
Dank mists, and chilling blasts, the power dispell'd:
And round the virgin breathed ethereal air;
Pure stream, that to the secret springs of life
Gives just and temperate harmony. Thus safe,
He held her sense in long oblivion drown'd.'

A long

A long episode is introduced towards the close of the poem ; in which a Druid shews Locrinus, in a vision, the future greatness of the united kingdoms. Here the author has done that which we expected to have found in Mr. Pye's Alfred; (see our Review for February last;) he has dwelt on the naval glory of this country, and has given a particular detail of the battle of the Nile.

To conclude.-Of Dr. Ogilvie's poetical powers, the reader will form a judgment from the preceding specimens. If they do not rise to the elevation of the Epic, they are far from being contemptible, and ought not to be confounded with some flippant productions of the day. We have observed some faults in the style, which might have been easily avoided. In p. 163, we have this hyperbole,

from his glance the land recoiled '

In p. 351, we meet with a very vulgar turn of expression;
While pondering thus, Androgeus took his eye ;'—

and in p. 411, pursuit is accented pursuit. The example of
Milton will not shelter a modern writer from censure, for such
deviations from ordinary pronunciation: our language is now
more settled, and our versification in general more exact.

If the large work before us had been judiciously pruned, and reduced to one half of its present size, it would probably have succeeded better with the public. Some well executed passages certainly occur, which would then have procured for it a perusal, and even reputation among a certain class of poetical readers. In its present state, we confess that we have found it much too long; and we apprehend that few persons. will be able to accomplish a progress through the whole.

A

ART. III. Remarks on the Cassandra of Lycophron, a Monody. By the Rev. H. Meen, B. D. 8vo. 2S. Rivingtons. CENTURY has now elapsed since Potter gave to the world his edition of Lycophron; in which he expressed his confidence that, by the labors of himself and of preceding commentators, "adeo plana perspicua et delucida fore omnia, ut nunquam posthac Lycophron TE THOTE titulo se effere poterit." Notwithstanding the light which the exertions of these learned men may have thrown on the poem, Lycophron seems still to maintain that rank in poetical society, which the judgment of antient critics assigned to him. His difficulties may be solved, his intricacies unravelled, and his obscurities illustrated: but we fear that no labor can give an attractive polish to his poetry, nor any ingenuity bestow the

charm

Fer.

charm of popularity on his numbers. His present commentator, Mr. Meen, is desirous of rescuing him from the censure It remains to be of the Stagyrite and the ridicule of Lucian.

proved how far he will succeed in this object. In the present pamphlet, he appears as an able advocate, an ingenious commentator, and a respectable translator; and we are sorry that the limits of our work will not allow us to follow him through his annotations, because we think that his observations are judicious, and his conjectures plausible and happy. A few extracts, however, will suffice to convey to our readers a favorable idea of his talents as a commentator.

• L. 144, 145, 146.

· Γυιαὶ γὰρ ἐυναστῆρας άμναμοι τριπλαῖς
Πήναις κατεκλώσαντο δηναιᾶς αλὸς,

Νυμφεία πεντάγαμβρα δαίσασθαι γάμων.

Cassandra here predicts, that Helen shall have five husbands. "Claudæ filiæ antiqui maris [Parcej neverunt triplicibus staminibus, maritos divisuros nuptiis nuptialia, quinquies-sponsalia."

• Пèrάy cannot be right. Eschylus calls Helen av dog"The Fates Ceov. Ag 695. But the poet probably wrote rayogia, compounded of πεντάκις and γάμβρια, δώρα ἢ δείπνα γαμβρου. have deereed," says Cassandra, "that husbands at the wedding shall distribute piz, bridal presents. The additional word ayaμg ascertains how often these presents shall be distributed, viz. five The marriage is here times; i. e. she shall be five times married.

expressed by the distribution of those presents, which usually accompanied its celebration. Meursius proposes to read Thai, the three Parcæ. But the expression is accurate as it stands. For the Parcæ were each of them concerned with these threads, or spindles, as Virgil speaks, around which the threads were rolled :

"Talia sæcla, suis dixerunt, currite, fusis,

Concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcæ."

The threads and spindles are both mentioned in a parallel passageμίτοισι χαλκέων στρόμβων. 585.

Virgil was very conversant with the poets of this period. He read Lycophron's Cassandra with singular delight; imitating often, as his custom was, the most admired passages in that poem.'

The information contained in the last passage of the above We should have been extract, we must confess, surprised us. glad to be furnished with Mr. Meen's source of intelligence on this subject.

The impenetrable obscurity of the subsequent passage renders any elucidation acceptable which is at all plausible; and we do not think that Mr. Meen's explanation is a very forced' one, especially as his construction of στόρθυγξ and δεδιπώς is more agreeable to the etymology of those words than that which has been generally received:

• L. 491.