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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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>^ \ 78 »
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« Boecrs visit , * and lamjlrtink s pilgrimage ^ to the east .
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It would be difficult to read Dr . Hogg ' s interesting volumes without feeling that his narrative might be depended upon as authentic It would be equally difficult to read those of M .
de Lamartine without being persuaded that he was quite as anxious to * render' Syria into French poetry , as to give a full , true , and particular account of the places he has visited . It is not only right to say that he succeeds in the former , but that he continually renders the scene in genuine poetry and painting of a very superior kind . His descriptions of scenery for precision
of outline , as well as fine colouring , are hardly to be surpassed . Or . Hogg is equally perfect in costumes ; but he has no eye for rocks and forests , and the changes of light and shade . If the latter imperceptibly , and from a deficiency of sympathy , gets over the ground too easily , the former often labours too visibly to detain us . Dr . Hogg ' descriptions generally reduce the
imagination to hard , painful , yet clear matter of fact ; those of Lamartine endeavour to give a new impulse to the mind concerning oriental subjects , things , and places . The one always succeeds in his purpose by its very simplicity ; the other sometimes fails , by being elaborate , and either bewilders us with florid declamation , or confuses great realities with great idealisms , till
the objects cannot be distinguished from their similitudes , and no effect that you can pin your faith upon * ( as the precise Dr . Hogg would say ) for a fair transcript , is produced by the whole . This , however , is only occasionally ; he often places the scene before you in such an outline , and with such definite colouring , that you are as sure of it as possible . The great objection to Lamartine ' s
pilgrimage is the pilgrim ' s egotism ; and this is quite as conspicuous in his gratuitous flourishes of religion , as in his * retiring for a moment / and returning to ' the company with the verses be had produced , and an estimate of the tears he had shed . Dr . Hogg sheds no tears . These puerilities in Lamartine are perfectly distinct from the genuine feeling which he evinces « it
moments of real excitement . Let us not be supposed to confound this with conceited woes . It was said long ago ' that man is little to be envied , whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon , or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona / Much more we may add whose Poetry and religion would not glow in the midst of the remains of Bfdbee , or under the cedars of Lebanon . Assuredly M . de
Virit t » Alr « ndri « , Dmmmv , sad Jetttadm , daring the tueeeafful Cam Mfa » 0 i ibnfata M& By U »» j 4 floggt JMLD . 2 roU . Standm * ad OUey fA Kfcajtg * to fee tUijLm * L fy AJjtoa * de Idwnntijie . 3 roU Bentley
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1835, page 782, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2652/page/26/
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