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considered as some expiation of the faults of his more early lays ; whilst " Lalla Rookh" and the " Loves of the Angels , " the purest and noblest of his poems , cannot but " win the smile" of all" who frowned before , " The chief fault of Moore ' s poetry is excess of beauty—a superabundance of illustration and ornament ; and it springs directly from his distinguishing excellence . His fancy , ever active and lively , like a young bird , flits from bough to bough and field to field , and , never content with the sunny mound
on which it lights , is continually seeking with a restless wing some brighter spot , until it at last almost loses itself in the light it so fondly courts . We have , therefore , often to complain of the very brilliancy of his verse , which is too fervid and dazzling , whilst its images are numerous as the motes that float and sparkle in the sunbeam . Like a lovely woman , fond of ornament , the muse of Moore is covered with too great a profusion of glittering diamonds and jewels , all most elegant indeed of their kind , and disposed with the greatest taste , but destroying in some degree that graceful simplicity which is not more becoming to female than to poetical beauty .
As a translator of poetry , Moore is decidedly too paraphrastic . He does not adhere , with sufficient exactness , to the thoughts or the style of the original : he , instead of imitating his object , seems only to embellish . In proof of this remark we would refer to his translated odes of Anacreon . The charm of the Teian bard is an union of simplicity with elegance ; and poetry , in the dress he has given her , is adorned with none of those ornaments and flowers in which the most celebrated of his modern imitators has
invested her . Like the mistress of Horace , the verse of Anacreon is strictly simplex munditiis . To illustrate these observations we shall now give a very literal prose translation of that beautiful poem in which this poet represents love as coming in the form of a child and knocking at his door at midnight , contrasting with some passages in it those parts of Moore ' s version which appear to us much too paraphrastic for translation . Prose Translation . ^ Once about midnight , when the Bear is already turning at the hand of Bootes , and all the tribes of articulate-speaking men , overcome by labour , are lying at rest , then Love , having come , continued knocking at the bars of my door . " Who , " I exclaimed , " raps at the door ? You will interrupt my dreams . " Love replies , " Open it ; I am a little child , do not be afraid ;
I am wet , too , and I have gone astray in the moonless night . " Hearing this , 1 was moved with pity , and immediately trimming up my lamp , I opened the door , and I beheld a little child indeed , carrying a bow and arrows and a quiver . But having made him sit near the hearth , I revived the warmth of his hands by chafing them with the palms of mine , and from
his hair I wrung out the moist water . When the cold abated , " Come , " says he , " let us try what injury the string of this bow of mine suffers from being wet . " He stretches it , and pierces me through the very heart like a gadfly ; then he springs up , laughing heartily ; and " Mine host , " said he , " congratulate me ; my bow is indeed uninjured , but you shall be sick at heart !"
In this ode of Anacreon , so strongly characterized by that light , playful , and elegant spirit which constitutes the charm of bis style , and which may justly entitle him to the epithet of the Ariel of Poets , the simple graces of the ori g inal are not preserved i » the more metaphorical and ornamented translation of Moore . The unadorned expression ,
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Character of Moore as a Poet . 60
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VOL . I . 2 U
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1827, page 649, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1800/page/17/
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