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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
Whatever wrinkles may have collected themselves round the brow of the stern reader , it will be smoothed at once by the second series . Alexis and Dora , the New Pausias , —see Pliny , b . xxxv . c . 40 . ' —Euphrosyne , —Elegiac , in our sense of the word ,: —and Amyntasy combine , with all the charms of diction , a moral grace ,
which the most elevated and pure of our own great poets , Wordsworth , never surpassed . Then follows an exposition of his famous theory on the * Metamorphosis of Plants . ' They who will not read the prose dissertation , may enjoy the poem , in which the author breathes a living soul into the vegetable world . The ' Herman and Dorothea' is both a preface to that epic tale , and an apology for his Roman elegies .
* I am charged with vulgarity by the vulgar , and even the better class , upright and well-intentioned , would have me other than I am ; but thou , Muse , alone commandest me , who art still renewing my youth , and promisest it to the end . But now , O Goddess , redouble thy care , for full locks no longer encircle my brow . Wreaths are become necessary to deceive both myself and others . Caesar himself wanted the laurel but to conceal his baldness ; hast thou destined a leaf for me ?
let it still flourish on the tree , and give it to me hereafter , when I better deserve it . And , in the meanwhile , roses sufficient for my use at home . &c . Next are two Epistles framed on the Horatian model—easy narrative in pedestrian verse , well contrasted with the deep and varied passion of the elegies .
We are now come to more than a hundred Epigrams , Venice 1790 . ' We have already remarked that they are in general rather in the spirit of the Greek Anthology , than of the Roman Martial—that is , they are not pointed—there is life in every part alike , and the beginning is not a mere preparation for the end . We will translate two as an illustration of this distinction—we take the twenty-first .
* The pilgrim pursues his course intently ; and will he find the saint ? hear and see the man who wrought the miracles ? No : time has removed him . There are to be seen nothing but his skull and a few bones in a box—Pilgrims are we all , —we who visit Italy , It is but a scattered bone that we worship piously and with joy . ' The thought is not complete without the last line , but the sense is in every part . It seems otherwise in the one that precedes it .
• In repose are standing at the arsenal two old Grecian lions . Petty are the adjacent gate , the tower , the canal . Were the mother of the gods to descend , they would crouch gladly before her car , and she would aasign a place for the I 5 tl * Elegy , has to direct his steps to the BcUy a wine-houa © , formed out of one of the vaults , anciently a den for the wild beasts of the Theatre Marcellus . Under the arched roof , black with the smoke of two thousand years , he may chance to meet with- a joyous company of German artists , quaffing delicious Orvicio , toasting the memory of their idolized poet , and , in full chorus , singing his songs . And if it chance to be « In alien guicn itunden , ' or * Mich erorti / i tck wrist nioht wiej it is not improbable that more than half of them will be ia tear * . J&ptrto cr § d * Jloberio .
Untitled Article
Goethe * * Works . 367
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1832, page 367, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1814/page/7/
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