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Himinary; and moreover, he dissipates the energy of the idea in a heap of particular resemblances, and by telling you that they were as numerous as leaves, as noisy as geese or cranes, as thick as flies, he succeeds in the end in leaving upon the mind a most confused, uncertain, and unsatisfying accumulation of whimsical similitudes. This might have been easily avoided by that noble and decisive plainness which Mr. Southey has used: he does not distract the attention with a vast number of little sums, or disgust the enthusiasm of his readers by the puerilities of flies and ganders, but at once, with no sort of shuffling, as if he was ashamed of his "rascals," he declares the truth, makes no comment, and adds no simile.

"Four hundred thousand men or more."

Have we ever seriously meditated upon the magnitude of this complex image? That elegant captive, Mr. Hunt, said, that a meeting of not one-fifth of this number was "tremendous." What then would be the impression created by this army, covered with glory and helmets, and of course drums and fifes playing? But it was just possible that some reader of "King Cambyses' vein might not think this astounding multitude sufficiently great. The Poet foresaw this, and guarded against the contingency; and by saying

"Four hundred thousand men or more,"

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he has left every reader to choose for himself, ad libitum, any number not less than the specified sum.

Are we in a tragic mood?What can be so terrible, so fearful to the imagination, as the circumstance of this enormous army of gallant soldiers marching away from a home which they were never to see again, fondly enjoying the charms of the landscape and the climate, and all this attributed to the despotic will of one bad individual?

The inexorable destiny of the Greek Tragedy was not so awful as this.

"Bonaparte he would set out”

"would set out," in spite of advice, in the teeth of treaties. Nobody had injured him, no one provoked him; a sanguinary caprice urges him on, and, as it seems, the fine weather encourages his hopes. Remark also his profane, yet humorous execrations, clearly arising from a habit of swearing, for as yet nothing has irritated him— "Morbleu! Parbleu!" He is very jocund-and out it comes. Thus far may be considered as the Protasis of the Tragedy.

Must it be a Comedy ?--But we see that if we go on thus, pointing out all the various lights in which this wonderful "Song" may be viewed, we shall exhaust ourselves and our readers. We will then proceed quickly through the remainder of the Poem, and only confine ourselves to the two points of Epic and Tragedy.

The action now begins; the Poet reserving the catalogue of the Russians in order to combine it with their exploits, and so save the tedium of two dry lists of This is a vast improvement upon the ancients.

names.

We owe it to our English genius. Well:

"But then the Russians they' turn'd to,

All on the road to Moscow;

Nap had to fight his way all through;

They could fight, but they could not parlez vous;
But the fields were green, and the sky was blue,

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He is still conqueror, has met with some hard blows, but yet the fine weather continues: he swears again, and gets into Moscow. This is the Epitasis.

Now follows immediately, without the distraction of Episode, the Peripateia and Russian catalogue; and we

will venture to pronounce it as our opinion, that more terrible ridicule, more rapid and continuous accumulation of fearful vicissitudes, and altogether any thing more in Homer's best manner, or nearer Pindar's impetuous eagerness, or Shakspeare's fashion of overwhelming his victim, by repeated blows of mischance, towards the end of a play, as in Richard III., Othello, King John, &c., has never appeared in the English or any other language. But let the song speak for itself:

"They made the place too hot for him,

For they set fire to Moscow;

To get there had cost them much ado,
And then no better course he knew,

While the fields were green, and the sky was blue,
Morbleu! Parbleu !

Than to march back again from Moscow.

The Russians they stuck close to him,

All on the road to Moscow.

There was Formazow and Temalow,
And all the others that end in ow,

Rajefsky and Noverefsky,

And all the others that end in efsky;

Schamcheff, Souchosaneff, and Schepeleff,

And all the others that end in eff;

Wasiltschikoff, Rostomanoff, and Tchoglokoff,

And all the others that end in of;

Milarodavitch, and Talaclovitch, and Karatchkowitch,
And all the others that end in itch;

Oscharoffsky, and Rostoffsky, and Kazatichkoffsky,
And all the others that end in offsky;

And last of all an Admiral came,

A terrible man, with a terrible name;
A name which you all must know very well,
Nobody can speak and nobody can spell:
And Platoff he played them off,-
And Markoff he marked them off,
And Touchkoff he touched them off,
And Kutusoff he cut them off,
And Woronzoff he worried them off,
And Dochtoroff he doctored them off,
And Rodinoff he flogged them off,-

They stuck close to him with all their might,
They were on the left, and on the right,
Behind and before, by day and by night,
Nap would rather parlez vouz than fight;
But parlez vous will no more do,
Morbleu Parbleu !

For they remember'd Moscow !"

Upon this splendid passage we have a few remarks to make. The taking of Troy ended the Trojan war, and the taking of Jerusalem ends the Epic of Tasso; but here the taking and subsequent conflagration of a city five times as large as either of the two former, is so far from concluding the war or poem, that it is used only as the commencement of the revolution of a fortune: it is, in fact, nothing, when compared with what follows, except apparently as the matrix of thousands of horrible beings, who seem to have sprung up from its flames, arrayed in names which leave Homer's skill in onomatopoiia far behind, and each of which is mentioned merely as a sample of unknown numbers, called by the same names, who are supposed to follow after. We are aware the liberty taken by the Poet on this head is unwarranted by authority; nor are we prepared to defend it by any arguments: but we may be allowed to suggest its great utility and poetical beauty as an excuse at least and, since the Song combines all kinds of composition, perhaps it is here that the comic and satirical vein prevails, with reference always to that Pindaric fervour, which would not give the Poet leisure to go deliberately through all the names of his heroes, but prompted the happy idea of concluding them all under similar terminations. We persuade ourselves that no one will deny the merit of the lines in italics; they possess that indistinctness and appalling uncertainty which the best Critics. and Poets have declared to be the truest source of the sublime. The passage can be paralleled only by Milton's Death: there is the same vague terror excited by

;

the hideous half-conceived phantasm, with this advantage on the side of our author;-that Milton has at length yielded to his curiosity, and let slip the real name of the spectre; whilst Mr. Southey gives no clue to a name, "which is a terrible name," which, he declares they all must know very well, but that nobody can speak it or spell it. What can be more awful than this certain uncertainty-this unspeakable, unspellable, nameless name? We may be enthusiastic; but, upon mature deliberation, we can remember nothing finer than this passage. The following lines, independent of the wit and skill, are defended by the common habit of the Greek Tragedians, who sometimes pun upon the names of their characters beyond all measure. We need not specify the manner in which poor Ajax is so eternally twitted about his unfortunate syllables, because such liberties with men's names are common throughout the Greek plays; but Eschylus refrains not even from the ladies, and is rude enough to speak of fair Helena in these vile and graceless puns:ἑλένας, ἕλανδρος, ἑλέπτολις. This, therefore, the greatest authority, is on the side of our Song.

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We now hasten on to the mortal catastrophe; desiring the reader to observe the singular consonance of the change of Nap's oaths with the change of his affairs. It is no longer the sportive Morbleu! but the dreadful and despairing "Sacrebleu !" the "bleu" in both painfully reminding him of the colour of the sky, which was now his enemy; remarking also the fearful draft which the runaway Emperor gives his Satanic Majesty upon his rear guard; his utter nonplus in the midst of snow, and frost, and Cossaques; and, at length, his ignominious flight, which is the legitimate exit of the Hero.

And then came on the frost and snow,

All on the road from Moscow !
The Emperor Nap found as he went
That he was not quite omnipotent;

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