1831.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



459 



The Didoniad, a semi- Virgilian Natttic 

 Epic, in Nine Cantos. Edited by Paul 

 Heidiger, Esq., late Lieutenant of the 

 Royal Navy- A vast deal too much, if 

 the term of a " good thing" was even 

 remotely applicable to it. The joke is 

 carried to a most serious extent sur- 

 passing, indeed, the limits of all mortal 

 patience. The writer must be his own 

 reader for one labour must be as stu- 

 pendous as the other. Five or six thou- 

 sand lines of a pertinacious attempt at 

 humour much of it in the shape and 

 semblance of parody too stand about as 

 much chance of getting read as so many 

 sleepy sermons. No parody spread over 

 more than half a dozen pages, however 

 brilliant in spots, was ever yet success- 

 ful. There is really no laughing over 

 it one can do nothing but growl. The 

 recollection, too, of Cotton's Travestie 

 quite irrepressible is of no manner 

 of advantage to this nautical attempt at 

 a new one. The new ./Eneas is the com- 

 mander of a man-of-war, as rough and 

 wilful as his own element, who, after 

 undergoing repairs in a Sicilian port, 

 cruizes off the African coast, and en- 

 counters a new Dido, who falls in love, 

 &c. We print a specimen by no means 

 the worst, and perhaps not the best 

 Divine /Eneas, then, our noble chief, 

 With mortals dwelling, deigned, [but here, Belief 

 Scarce can believe,] for sympathy's dear link, 



With men to dine divinely, and to sup, 

 And no less as a demigod to drink, 



Where friendship's summons claimed the social 



cup 



Or sparkling bowl. His steadiness to steal 

 All powerless they, or once to make him 



flounder : 



Howe'er mere common human clay might feel, 

 The heaven-born hero only slept the sounder. 

 Did Virgil wish to give a novel bias 

 To the Epic when hedrew/tz's hero pious ? 

 Was't " piety," he neither drank nor swore ? 



The Ilian swordsman always had some sleight 

 Or foul play of his godling guides in store, 

 To help him out, in lieu of manly might. 

 His buccaneer behaviour to poor Turnus, 

 With indignation is enough to burn us. 

 Who shall pronounce him either good or great, 

 Who heathenly ascribed events to fate ? 

 Now, our ^Eneas never had but one duct 

 Of moral feeling cutlasses and conduct. 

 The one a conquered fugitive went to sea ; 

 The other, in his native gallantry. 

 Compared with Slowjohn he was quite a craven, 

 Whom chance, not worth, consign'd to fortune's 



haven. 



True, there's that story of his filial feat 

 In shouldering off his father, in retreat 

 From burning Troy, which children learn by rote. 

 Not very likely, in the crowded street 

 Of the sack'd city, Greeks, in battle heat, 

 Should grant such grace to any. But we'll quote 

 A surer case: Slowjohn> in perpetuity, 

 Tripled his mother's jointure, as annuity. 



Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia. Vol. 

 XVI This volume completes the His- 



tory of Maritime and Inland Discovery, 

 and the whole proves to be an excel- 

 lent digest of materials, covering an im- 

 mense space, and much of which has lost 

 its value by subsequent and more cor- 

 rect information. This concluding por- 

 tion of the work communicates the pith 

 of the discoveries and narratives of By- 

 ron, Wallis, Carteret, Cook, La PC. 

 rouse, Vancouvre, Ito^s, Parry, and 

 Weddell besides a rapid sketch of 

 events in the South Seas, and a glance 

 at Australia and Van Diemen. Of Tra- 

 vels, in like manner, we have Franklin's 

 Journeys in North America, and Hum- 

 boldt's in South America and in Africa, 

 Bruce, Parke, Denham, Clapperton, 

 every one, in short, down to Caillie. 

 The most remarkable deficiency is in 

 India, of which vast regions we find 

 nothing but notices of travellers in the 

 Himalyeh. One chapter is dedicated 

 wholly to Bruce, against whom the com- 

 piler entertains too much of the old pre- 

 judice, which Major Head has recently 

 been combating in Murray's Family 

 Library. He mistakes as to facts so 

 far were Lord Valentia and Mr. Salt 

 from affording, as he states, their testi- 

 mony to Bruce's correctness, that the 

 first studiously, though with little per- 

 sonal knowledge of his own, sought to 

 exhibit proofs of his ignorance and his 

 falsehood. Salt himself, too, was ready 

 to back his patron, and even when sub- 

 sequent experience better enabled him 

 to appreciate Bruce's statements, he tar- 

 dily and grudgingly acknowledged their 

 general fidelity. But Bruce is charged 

 specifically with humbugging the public 

 as to the source of the Nile. The 

 branch he traced to its springs was after 

 all not the main stream ; but, then, who 

 but Bruce himself told us that the Blue 

 River was far inferior in magnitude to 

 the White ? Then again, proceeds the 

 writer, he " endeavoured to conceal 

 from the public, and even from him- 

 self,'] the fact, that the sources which 

 he visited had been seen 150 years be- 

 fore by Paez, the Portuguese Jesuit 

 when the truth is, that Bruce points 

 out inaccuracies in Paez's descriptions ; 

 and as to concealing the fact from him- 

 self., it is not so easy a matter as the 

 writer seems to think. 



The writer does not, we observe, 

 question the fact of Caillie's having ac- 

 tually reached Timbuctoo, but he adds, 

 justly enough, that geography has gained 

 nothing by the details. It is idle, in- 

 deed, for incompetent persons to go on 

 such errands ; and yet our own govern- 

 ment have recently dispatched Clapper- 

 ton's servant to the coast of Africa-^a 

 man who has no earthly recommenda- 

 tion but that of being seasoned to the 

 climate. 

 3 N 2 



