109 



C04. " They feriy over this Lethean sound 



Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment, 

 And \vish and struggle, as they pass, to reach 

 The tempting stream, mth one small drop to lose 

 In sweet forgetfuluess all pain and woe. 

 All in one moment and so near the brink. 

 But Fate withstands, and to oppose the attempt 

 Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards 

 The ford, and of itself the water flies 

 All taste of living wight, as once it fled 

 The lips of Tantalus." 



It is here where — 



625. " Nature breeds 



Perverse all monstrous', all prodigious things ; 

 Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimseras dire." 



Frequent is the polytheistic aUusion to gods in the plural number, 

 which can only be explained from a familiarity with the term, caused 

 by classical reading, and which at the present day is beginning to 

 offend our feelings. Who will approve, that the poet says of the 

 devils, "Their visages and stature as of gods," (I. 570) or that the 

 archangel should be made to say, (VII. 329) " That earth now seemed 

 like to heaven, a seat where gods might dwell;" or the following pas- 

 sage in the poet's mouth, (X. 90) " The speed of Gods time counts 

 not, though with swiftest minutes winged." And yet the impropriety 

 that lies in these passages is sitrpassed by Eve being represented like a 

 Greek Aphrodite, (VIII. 59)— 



" With goddess-like demeanour forth she went, 

 Not unattended ; for on her as queen 

 A i)omp of winning graces waited stUl." 



Nor does Michael scruple to talk of goddesses to Adam, (XI. Gl-l.) 

 " For that fair female troop thou saw st, that seemed of goddesses, 

 so blithe, so smooth, so gay, (compare I. 558, II. 108.) 



There was a period in German literature, when the gods and goddesses 

 of Greece were constantly conjured up to fill the metre, or furnish a 

 lioUow phrase. Even Schiller is not free from this fault. He meant 

 no harm in thus appealing to Venus or Bacchus. It was a mere form 

 of speech, the fruit of that devout study of the antique poets, which 

 often made the moderns live and think and speak in the forms of anti- 

 quity. But we have emerged from this tirocinium. We have done 

 with these classical exotics. The flowers to adorn our poetry, we 

 require, henceforth, to be native and genuine. 



One of the worst, iKThajis tJie worst instance of the adoption of 



