CHARACTERS. 
and poetry, and which they enliven 
by epitaphs on Castilian generals, 
and a long poem on the achieve- 
ments of the duke of Alva, and the 
birth of his son, is not well adapt- 
ed to the taste of common readers, 
or likely to escape the censure of 
critics. In most instanees, how- 
ever, the abstract of a work of this 
_ nature, for it must be considered as a 
“poem, forms a very unfair criterion 
of its merit. The chief objects of 
poetry are to delineate strongly, the 
_ characters and passions of mankind, 
to paint the appearances of nature, 
and to describe their effects upon 
our sensations. To accomplish 
_. these ends the versification must be 
smooth, the language pure and im- 
_ pressive, and the images just, natural, 
_ and 
te 
appropriate; our interest 
should be excited by the nature of 
the subject, and kept up by the spi- 
rit of thenarration. The probability 
of the story, the connexion of the 
_ tale, the regularity of the design, 
are indeed beauties; but beauties 
which are ornamental rather than 
necessary, which have often been 
attained by persons who had no 
_ poetical turn whatever, and as of- 
t 
ten neglected by those whose genius 
and productions have placed them 
in the first rank of the province of 
_ poetry. Novels and comedies de- 
rive, indeed, a great advantage from 
“ 
an attention to these niceties. 
But 
in the higher branches of invention 
they are the less necessary, because 
the justness of the imitation of 
_ passions inherent in the general na- 
_ 
ture of man, depends less upon the 
probability of the situations, than 
that of manners and opinions re- 
suffing from the accidental and tem- 
porary forms of society. 
843 
“¢ To judge,” says Lord H. ‘* by 
another criterion of the parts of the 
Arcadia which I have read, and es. 
pecially of the verses, there are in 
it many harmonious lines, some elo-~ 
quence, great facility and occasion- 
ally beauty of expression, and above 
all, a prodigious variety of maxims, 
similes, and illustrations. These 
merits, however, are disfigured by 
great déformities. The language, 
though easy and fluent, is not the 
language of nature ; the versification 
is often eked out by unnecessary 
exclamations, and unmeaning ex- 
pletives, and the eloquence is at 
one time distorted into extravagant 
hyperbole, and at another degene- 
rates into low and tedious common- 
place. The maxims, as in all Spa~ 
nish authors of that time, are often 
trivial and often untrue. When 
they have produced an antithesis, 
they think they have struck out a 
truth. ‘The illustrations are some- 
times so forced and unnatural, that 
though they may display erudition, 
and excite surprise, they cannot elu- 
cidate the subject, and are not like- 
ly to delight the imagination. They 
seem to be the result of labour, and 
not the creation of fancy, and par- 
take more of the nature of conun- 
drums and enigmas, than of similes 
and images. Forced conceits, and 
play upon words, are indeed com~ 
mon in this as in every work of 
Lope de Vega; for he was one of 
the authors who contributeé to in- 
troduce that taste for false wit, 
which soon afterwards became so 
universally prevalent throughout 
Europe. Marino,* the champion 
of that style in Italy, with the 
highest expressions of admiration 
for his model, acknowledges that 
he 
* Essequie poetiche, yol. xxi. Lope de Vega. 
