508 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 61. 



Is indeed superior to this, one of the Dutch poet's 

 masterpieces — if Hermes, being, as I conclude 

 from his own words, conversant with the language 

 of our Shakspeare, had taken pains to read Lu- 

 cifer, he would not have repeated a statement un- 

 favourable to Vondel's poetical genius. I, for my 

 part, will not hazard a judgment on poems so dif- 

 ferent and yet so alike ; I will not sneer at Milton's 

 demon-gods of Olympus, nor laugh at " their artil- 

 lery discharged in the daylight of heaven ;" for such 

 instances of bad taste are to be considered as clouds 

 setting off the glories of the whole : but this I will 

 say, that Vondel wrote his Lucifer in 1654, the 

 sixty-seventh of his life, while Milton's Paradise 

 Lost was composed four years later. The honour 

 of precedence, in time, at least, belongs to my coun- 

 tryman. All the odds were against the British 

 poet's competitor, if one who wrote before him 

 may be so called ; for, while Milton enjoyed every 

 privilege of a sound classical education, Vondel 

 had still to begin a course of study when more 

 than twenty-six years of age; and, while the 

 Dutch poet told the price of homelv stockings to 

 prosaic burghers, the writer of Paradise °Lost 

 was speaking the language of Torquato Tasso in 

 the country enraptured by the first sight of la 

 divina comedia. 



_ I am no friend of polemical writing, and I be- 

 lieve the less we see of it in your friendly periodi- 

 cal, the better it is ; but still I must protest against 

 such copying of partially written judgments, "when 

 good information can be got. I say not by stretch- 

 ing out a hand, for the book was already opened 

 by your correspondent — but alone by using one's 

 eyes and turning over a leaf or two. Else, why 

 did Hermes learn the Dutch language ? I ask 

 your subscribers if the following versel are weak, 

 and if they would not have done honour to the 

 English Vondel ? 



CHORUS OF ANGEtS. 



(From Lucifer.') 



" Who sits above heaven's heights sublime, 



Yet fills the grave's profoundesl place,' 

 Beyond eternity, or time, 



Or the vast round of viewless space : 

 Who on Himself alone depends — 



Immortal — glorious — but unseen 



And in His mighty being blends 



What rolls around or flows within. 

 Of all we know not — all we know 



Prime source and origin — a sea, 

 Whose waters pour'd on earth below 



Wake blessing's brightest radiancy. 

 'Tis power, love, wisdom, first exalted 

 ^ And waken'd from oblivion's birth ; 

 Yon starry arch — yon palace, vaulted 



Yon heaven of heavens, to smile on earth. 

 From his resplendent majesty 



We shade us 'neath our sheltering wings, 



While awe-inspired and tremblingly 

 We praise the glorious King of Kings, 



With sight and sense confused and dim ; 

 O name — describe the Lord of Lords, 



The seraph's praise shall hallow Him ; — 

 Or is the theme too vast for words ? " 



RESPONSE. 



" 'Tis God I who pours the living glow 



Of light, creation's fountain-head : 

 Forgive the praise — too mean and low — 



Or from the living or the dead. 

 No tongue Thy peerless name hath spoken, 



No space can hold that awful name ; 

 Tlie aspiring spirit's wing is broken ; — 



Thou wilt he, wert, and art the same I 

 Language is dumb. Imagination, 



Knowledge, and science, helpless fall ; 

 They are irreverent profanation, 



And thou, O God I art all in all. 

 How vain on such a thought to dwell I 



VV^ho knows Thee — Thee the All-unknown? 

 Can angels be thy oracle, 



Who art — who art 'J'hyself alone? 

 None, none can trace Thy course sublime. 



For none can catch a ray from Thee, 

 The splendour and the source of time— . 



The Eternal of eternity. 

 Thy light of light outpour'd conveys 



Salvation in its flight elysian, 

 Brighter than e'en Thy mercy's rays ; 



But vainly would our feeble vision 

 Aspire to Thee. From day to day 



Age steals on us, but meets Thee never ; 

 Thy power is life's support and stay — 



We praise thee, sing thee, Lord 1 for ever." 



" Holy, holy, holy I Praise — 

 Praise be His in every land ; 

 Safety in His presence stays — 

 Sacred ic His high command 1" 



Dr. Bowring's version, — though a good one, if 

 the difficulty be considered of giving back a piece 

 of poetry, whose every word is a poem in itself, 

 and by whose rhyme and accentuation a feeling 

 of indescribable awe is instilled into the most fas- 

 tidious reader's mind, — Dr. Bowring's version is 

 but a feeble reverberation of the holy fire per- 

 vading our Dutch poet's anthem. But still there 

 rests enough in his copy to give one a high idea 

 of the original. I borrow the same Englishman's 

 words when I add : — 



" The criticism that instructs, even though it in- 

 structs Severely, is most salutary and most valuable. It 

 is of the criticism that insults, and while it insults in- 

 forms not, that we have a right to complain," — Batavian 

 Anthology, p. 6. 



Janus Dousa. 



Manpadt House. 



