504 | 
of itsalloy; arid is never valued for its 
bulk, but for its richnefs: if Milton 
therefore contains about one-fixth, and 
Klopftock one-half, of drofs, the latter is 
the inferior fpecimen. 
To the characterization of Klopftock, 
other obfervations belong. Some German 
critics have called Milton the Homer, 
and Klopftock the Virgil, of modern re- 
ligion. The compariion will not bear a 
very clofe infpe@ion. Homer is admit- 
tedly the greateft genius who ever un- 
dertook epic poetry, but he is not the 
polifhed artift: his obfervation is ubiqui- 
tary ; his invention is unprecedented and 
inexhauftible; his ftyle is omnipotent, 
but it is unambitious, garrulous, and at 
times flovenly, rifing and finking wth 
his fubject. He refembles thofe perfect 
human bedies that grow up in the ruder 
ftages of fociety, which have every exer- 
tion at command, combining the ftrength 
of Hercules and the fwiftnefs of Hermes, 
but which, when unmoved by paffion, 
{pread in liftlefs indolence. Virgil, with 
very inferior talent, exerts a greater de- 
gree of art; his whole capital of idea is 
“borrowed; he is entirely the poet of 
precedent, an induftrious gleaning tranf- 
lator; his ftyle is level, neat, and elabo- 
rate, never precipitous, never low. 
refembles his cotemporary Pylades, the 
dancer, who only fhewed himtelf in atti- 
tudes worthy of Apollo, who by trained 
dexterity could imitate with applaufe the 
gait of force or agility, but without pof- 
fefling the native vigour to excel in ei- 
ther. ‘The intelle@tual powers of Milton 
exceed thofe of Virgil: there is more 
energy, more foul in his diction, in his 
perfonages; what he writes ftimulates 
more during perufal; but he is a poet of 
the fame fort. He too compofes by 
means of his reading; he too collects 
and felects his defcriptions and compari- 
fons, his maxims and chara&ers, from 
the works of his predeceffors: his ftyle 
is more condenfed, thoughtful, harth, 
and unequal, than Vireil’s; but it is alfo 
the attentive ftyle of a toiling artift, 
who is purfuing a different idea of per- 
fection. Klopitock belongs to quite ano- 
ther defcription of compofers. Poets 
draw from nature, from art, and from 
idea. ‘They may owe their materials 
chiefly to obfervatioa, chiefly to reading, 
or chiefly to reflection. They may de- 
light in deferibing the phenomena of 
their experience ; in compiling the trea- 
fures of their ftudy; or, in exhibiting 
thofe fibftitutions of the fancy, which 
the fenfes fometimes, and fometimes 
books, fuggeft. Homer is furely of the 
firft, Milton and Virgil of the fecond, but 
Klopftsck’s Mefiiah. 
He 
[ Jan. 1, 
Klopftock of the third of thefe claffes *. 
He is the poet of refleGion, in the ftriéter 
fenfe of the word: he always draws from 
the picture in his own imagination, even 
when he derives the hint of it from a 
preceding writer. His plagiarifm is ne- 
ver occupied, like Milton’s, in mending 
the paflage which he means to borrow, 
but the fcene which he means again te 
copy. In whatever he transfers, there- 
fore, the point of view, the colouring, 
the locality, the diftribution changes ; 
circumftances vary,and perfonagesthicken 
on his canvas. But hé is too apt to loiter 
over his amendments, until he forgets 
the motive for undertaking them, and, 
in completing a picture for a fimile, to 
overfhade the point of comparifon; fo 
that his ornaments refemble arabefques— 
the arabefques of Raphael indeed—one 
cannot guefs at the branching point in 
what the volute is to terminate. This 
practice of fecond-hand painting is un- 
wife: fuch fketches are apt, as artifts 
would fay, to want the folid. And in fa& 
the {fcenery of Klopftock is illuminated 
by a certain gloomy twilight, a mifty 
glory, an intangible rainbowy luftre, 
which disfavours an impreflion of reality. 
The vivid hues of his decorations, (in the 
fimile of the peftilence, for inftance,) on 
returning to the narrative, melt into thin 
air: fpectres clufter about his fad, and 
diffolve it into phantafm. His moun- 
tains feem as it were clouds; his groves, 
-of empyreal palm; his cities, fuburbs of 
fome new Jerufalem; his gorgeous pa- 
laces, -his' folemn temples, all appear to 
partake the fabric of a vifion. To dream 
fights is the felicity of poets; it is re- 
markably that of Klopftock; he oftener 
looks within and feldomer without for 
objects than any other fon of fancy. 
Klopftock frequently deferts the epic 
for the dramatic form, and, inftead of in- 
troducing his fpeeches narratively, pre- 
fixes initials merely to the alternations of 
the dialogue. Indeed thofe fhort fpeeches 
which abound in the Meffiah, could not 
have been employed at all, if always ufh- 
ered in with a whole hexameter like Ho- 
mer’s 
Him thus anfwer’d again the kingof men 
Agamemnon. 
Yet this licence has not conferred vivaci- 
ty, becaufe the fpeeches are moftly con- 
templative, not active; the effufions of by- 
ftanders, not the declarations of agents. 

* Are not Ariofto, Camoens, and 
Ercilla of the firft, Taffo and Wieland 
of the fecond, and Macpherfon of the 
third of thefe claffes ? 
One 
