504 
Thé mind, accustomed to violent im- 
pressions, knew not where to stop; 
and plunged into excesses to escape 
from ennui. 
It were wisdom, therefore, to en- 
courage other species of poesy ; and not 
reject with an unmerited disdain those 
which, without these meretricious adorn- 
ments and appeals of passion, seek to 
embellish with the colourings of imagi- 
nation the objects of nature and the pro- 
gress of the arts—the precepts of mora- 
lity, and the tranquil operations of rural 
life. Such are the Georgics of Virgil : 
such, with the twofold inferiority of our 
language, and the talents of the author, 
the poem of the Gardens and the French 
Georgics. 
The celebrated character whose opi- 
nion I tale the liberty of contesting, 
considers the subject of the former of 
these defective in interest. Does he 
mean, by this, that it is not calculated 
to excite those violent agitations and 
those deep impressions, that belong to 
poems of the fore-mentioned class? In 
this we are agreed. But is this the only 
species of interest of which the human 
mind is susceptible? What then !—this 
charming art—the most tranquil, the 
most natural, the most virtuous of all— 
this art which, in another place, I have 
called “ the luxury of agriculture,” which 
poets themselves have painted as the 
first pleasure of the first-created man— 
this sweet and elegant arrangement of 
the affluence of seasons and the fertility 
of the earth, which gives charms to vir- 
tuous solitude, and dissipates even the 
satiety of old age—which exhibits the 
face of nature and all her rustic beau- 
ties in the most brilliant colours and 
under the happiest combinations, and 
transforms to regions ef enchantment 
the savage and neglected wilderness :— 
is thisan uninteresting subject? Milton, 
Tasso, Homer, did not think so, when, 
in their immortal poems, they exhausted 
upon it all the treasures of their imagi- 
nations, and produced those exquisite 
passages which, as often as they are 
perused, renew or awaken in the heart 
a taste for simple and unsophisticated 
pleasures. Virgil in his Georgies has 
made an old man who cultivated, on the 
borders of the Galesus, a garden of the 
humblest kind, the subject of a charm- 
ing episode, which never fails to delight 
the unperverted judgment, and the soul 
susceptible of the genuine beauties of 
art and nature. 
Let us add that the interest awaken- 
ed by poetry is of two descriptions: 
On Didactic Poetry. 
the one resulting from the subject, the 
other from the manner in which it is 
treated. It is the latter of these that 
principally pertains to the species of 
oems I have submitted to the public. 
hey boast not the intricacies of action 
to stimulate curiosity, or the excite- 
ments of passion to agitate the soul. 
This interest, therefore, must be sup- 
plied by all the graces and delicacies of 
detail, and the perfection ofa style alike 
distinguished by splendour and simpli- 
city. The justness of idea, the vivacity 
of colouring, an affluence of imagery, 
the charm of variety, the art of contrast 
and arrangement, all the magic of har- 
mony, and a never-failing elegance of 
thought and expression—must be per- 
petually employed to engage and enliven 
the attention of the reader. But to ac- 
complish this requires an organization 
the most happy, a taste the most ex- 
quisite and indefatigable: and there- 
fore it is, that, while Europe may boast 
of two hundred good tragedies, excel- 
lence is so rare in works of this descrip- 
tion. The Georgics, and the poem of 
Lucretius, are the only monuments of 
the didactic poetry of the ancients : and 
while the tragedies of Ennius and Pacu- 
vius, and even the Medea of Ovid, have 
perished, antiquity has transmitted to 
us these two poems entire. It seems 
as though the genius of Rome were 
still watchful of her glory, in the pre- 
servation of these her masterpieces. 
Among the moderns, there is little of 
this description to notice. The two 
poems on the Seasons (the English and 
the French), Boileau’s Art of Poetry, 
and Pope’s admirable Essay on Man, are 
all that maintain a distinguished rank 
in the estimation of the literati, 
Nore.— Delille was known as a transla- 
tor of theGeorgics, and the Gardens, whilst 
yet very young, twenty years before the 
publication of L’Homme des Champs, the 
translation of the Aeneid, of Milton, and 
the poem of the Three Reigns; from his 
poem of the Gardens (began in England, 
whence he returned with unknown trea- 
sures) first emanated the taste for those 
delicious prairies, where the muse delights | 
to dwell. L’Homme des Champs, though | 
it has been justly criticized with some 
severity, produced great sensation in the 
public mind ; the French nation had long 
listened in vain for the sound of real 
poetry; and the soft perfume of Delille’s 
versification was inhaled as the long/absent 
natal air would be inhaled by an exile: but 
the Aineid possessed a still more powerful 
attraction—the soft and flowing eloquence 
which speaks to the soul, and that, sym- 
pathy 
