down Fox's Channel. Again, when wintering in Port Bowen, the ice and water were observed in motion towards the middle of Prince Regent's Inlet. When about to depart, he says, 'Lieutenant Ross, returning on the 15th, brought the welcome intelligence of the sea being perfectly open and free from ice at the distance of twenty-two miles to the northward of Port Bowen, by which I concluded, what, indeed, had long been a matter of probable conjecture, that Barrow's Strait was not permanently frozen during the winter. From the tops of the hills about Cape York, beyond which promontory Lieutenant Ross travelled, no appearance of ice could be distinguished." We think then that these statements add strength to our opinion, that, a navigator who should launch out into the wide expanse of sea, or, when necessary, keep in the middle of a strait, would be more likely to succeed and to make a greater progress, with much less labour, than he who adheres to the plan of boring along a narrow channel of water, liable to the obstructions we have mentioned. With a ship made as strong as wood and iron can make her-like the Hecla, for instance-we do not conceive any danger is to be apprehended, whether in summer or winter. A few years ago, a Dutch whaler was caught in the ice between Spitzbergen and Greenland, and found herself in the month of February off the coast of Ireland, the crew having suffered dreadfully for want of provisions, but the ship not at all. Whether the government mean to prosecute farther these geographical and scientific discoveries, in the northern regions, is no business of ours; we have taken every opportunity to express our own humble approbation of their value in a scientific point of view, independent of all national or selfish considerations; and we know that we have had with us, in so doing, the sentiments of every civilized nation of Europe, and of the United States, who, perhaps, more than others, are competent to estimate the real and solid value of what our unparalleled (we bestow the epithet advisedly)—our unparalleled countrymen have accomplished. Nor can we allow this opportunity to pass without acknowledging the gratitude which is due to those in power who have given countenance to these expeditions of discovery and scientific investigation, more especially to two noblemen who, to the great satisfaction of the intelligent public, once more hold high and responsible situations in his Majesty's government-the Earl Bathurst and the Viscount Melville. To these patriotic noblemen the highest praise is justly due, for the readiness with which they have entered into the views of those who laid before them the objects of science which such expeditions might accomplish, and the facilities which they gave, and alone could give, for the attainment of Parry's Third Voyage, pp. 83, 84. those those objects. We can assure them that their cordial assistance and patronage are duly appreciated, and this not only in their own country, but, perhaps, in a still higher degree among foreign nations. We now take leave of the subject—perhaps for ever-in the words, which we are proud to adopt, of Captain Franklin : 'Arctic discovery has been fostered principally by Great Britain; and it is a subject of just pride that it has been prosecuted by her from motives as disinterested as they are enlightened; not from any prospect of immediate benefit to herself, but from a steady view to the acquirement of useful knowledge, and the extension of the bounds of science. Each succeeding attempt has added a step towards the completion of northern geography; and the contributions to natural history and science have excited a general interest throughout the civilised world. It is, moreover, pleasing to reflect that the loss of life which has occurred in the prosecution of these discoveries does not exceed the average number of deaths in the same population at home under circumstances the most favourable. And it is sincerely to be hoped that Great Britain will not relax her efforts until the question of a north-west passage has been satisfactorily set at rest, or at least until those portions of the northern shores of America, which are yet unknown, be laid down in our maps; and which, with the exception of a small space on the Asiatic continent eastward of Shelatskoi Noss, are the only intervals wanting to complete the outline of Europe, Asia, and America.'-p. 319. ART. III.-Georgica Publii Virgilii Maronis, in quinque linguas conversa: Hispanicam a Joanne de Guzman; GermanicamJohanne Henrico Voss; Anglicam-Gulielmo Sotheby; Italicam-Francisco Soave; Gallicam-Jacobo Delille. Lond. 1827. Folio. THE general merits of Virgil's Georgies have long ago been settled, and by much more competent judges than ourselves. The number of facts collected in that beautiful poem, some of them valuable and all of them curious-the wide extent of country which the author's mind had evidently travelled over to collect these facts, bearing, as they do, upon almost every possible variety of soil and climate, and illustrating every diversity of pastoral habits and manners-the dexterity with which the didactic part of the subject has been treated, not so superficial as to want interest, nor so minute as to fatigue attention-the skilful adaptation of the parts to the whole, and the gradual rise in the interest of the subject; these alone had been sufficient to place the author of the Georgics in the highest rank of his art. But, with these facts have been interspersed episodes of so masterly a kind, some of them them so singularly minute and accurate in observation, and others so rich and vivid in description; some conceived in the most touching pathos and sensibility, and others flashing forth in a most extraordinary grandeur and sublimity; and all wrapped up in a diction so exquisitely polished, and a verse so richly harmonious and appropriate, that, if the name of perfect can be applied to any human composition, it undoubtedly belongs to this noblest production of the Latin muse. But, amidst the shower of praises, which these complicated excellencies have justly brought down upon the author of the poem itself, one person seems to us to have been occasionally overlooked, and that is, the friend and patron to whose suggestion the poem owed its commencement, and to whose superintendence we are inclined to attribute much of its execution. It is the poet's own confession, that all that was* grand and lofty in his own conceptions was but the reflex of another's mind; and we are almost inclined to take him at his word. Tenderness and elegance were the natural characteristics of Virgil's genius; and a mind thus constituted and left to itself, where would it have sought its food and enjoyment? It would have hung, in fond remembrance, over his lost and lovely Mantua; it would have haunted along the streams of his native Mincius, dreaming of the white swans that breasted its silver waves, and the lovely herbage which grew along its banks, so fruitful and benignant that the dews of a brief night sufficed to repair the devastations of the longest day. A short rivalry with him who, at once originated and, in our opinion, brought to perfection the sylvan dialogue-a picture for idealists and enthusiasts to hang over-a succession of those delicious reveries and images which form for the mind so delightful a world of its own within, and leave it so unfit for the real world without; such would, perhaps, have been the summit of the poet's wishes, and the furthest scope of his labours. The voice of a statesman dispersed these dreams of the closet; and what the unguents of the dervise were to the eyes of the boy in the eastern tale, the discourses of Mæcenas were to Virgil's mind. They opened, on his admiring gaze, a flood of riches, those better riches which lie upon the earth's surface, and not the fictitious wealth which lies below it; they taught him a better estimate of his own powers, and encouraged him to strike out a path, which should render him a model for others, instead of being a mere imitator himself; and, if we Te sine nil altum mens inchoat.'-III. 42. consider consider that it was when the name of Rome was almost synonymous with the world itself, and amidst every allurement which art and luxury could furnish, that a statesman's eye could thus descend to the spade and the plough, as the surest means of individual happiness, and the truest source of national greatness, the connexion of Maecenas with all the genius of his day will not give us a higher opinion of his fine taste, and intellectual powers, than the advice thus given will afford of his plain week-day wisdom and foresight; offering another to the many strong contrasts and contradictions which existed in the mind of that very extraordinary man. It is to this connexion of the poet with statesmen and politicians that the Georgics, no doubt, owe what to us appears their most marked and valuable distinction-their practical tendency; and, whoever does not bear this constantly in mind, will form but an imperfect estimate of the poem itself, and be an incompetent judge of the attempts made by others to render it into modern languages. It is for this reason that the poet so frequently recals to mind the difficulties attendant on husbandry, and the skill and patience by which alone those difficulties are to be removed; it is for the same purpose that he scruples not to introduce occasionally a homely word or thought, as if to familiarise the reader with some of those coarser operations which, however they may be removed from the theory, must ever belong to the practice of husbandry; and it is for a similar reason, we apprehend, that even his sweetest digressions are often broken by a common parenthesis, or by some passing stroke of darkness or harshness, as if the poet felt like the northern revellers, who, over their cups and potations, were said occasionally to twang the strings of their bows, that a spirit of softness or effeminacy might not creep into their very relaxations. The Georgics, therefore, are not to be lightly treated as a poem meant to soothe the ear, or while away a passing hour: they are a solemn legacy left to mankind, applicable to all places, and times, and persons; they are the conjoint product of a politician and a poet, both of the highest order; and they bear on their brow the marks of the sources from which they emanated, the strength of the statesman's mind, and the softness of the poet's-the serene majesty of the one, and the practical wisdom of the other. That these ideas are not confined to ourselves may be gathered from the zeal and activity with which all the great languages of Europe have sought to naturalize among themselves the contents of the Georgics; and no slender praise is due to Mr. Sotheby, who has collected into one magnificent volume these different efforts of skill and learning, and who may justly feel a poet's and a patriot's pride in the reflection that among all these various ver sions there is not one which in general fidelity of conception and splendour of execution surpasses, if it even equals his own. And could we persuade ourselves that modern statesmen ever find, amid the incessant toils of office, an opportunity of recurring to the studies of their earlier years, and of repairing their powers in the purest and sweetest of all human enjoyments, we would fain hope that this costly volume might find its way into some of their hands, and as they ponder over its glowing pages some kindred reflections might be awakened in their own breasts. Is that reverence, which is here said to be so emphatically due to the plough, one of the distinguishing marks of the present day? Is that protection given to agriculture which should incline a wise man to embark his property and his feelings (we might, from its late changeful and gambling tendency, almost say his morals) in the practice of it; and are all those relations, which grow out of the rural system, in that sound and healthy state in which a statesman's eye would wish to see them? Have we a resident gentry, kind, hospitable, generous-living and willing to let livelovers of the manly sports of their ancestors-able by their knowledge to explain and by their firmness to enforce the laws of their country, and almost rendering those laws of no necessity by throwing the influence of their own kindly spirits into the happy circle around them; or is an overgrown, luxurious metropolis gradually drawing them into its vortex, to consume in frivolous or guilty pleasures the wealth which should have gladdened the hearts of their tenantry and labourers, and finally, perhaps, to drive them into foreign countries, there to be reminded of their own fair fields only by the reluctant driblets which occasionally find their way into their famished hands? Have we, again, a body of yeomanry, realizing to the eye those images of substantial comfort and rural wealth which the Camachos and Van Tassels of the novelists have supplied to the delighted mind in the closet, and lodging in their hearts that British spirit, of which it never yet belonged to Dutch boor or Spanish labrador to form a remote conception? Have we, above all, a bold and hardy peasantry, attached to the soil which finds them nutriment as well as birth; holding their heads erect beneath the canopy of heaven, and feeling that the winds which blow upon their cheeks are not more Among these we include not, of course, those enormous preserves of game, which were utterly unknown to our forefathers, and of which the effect is, to nourish an indolent, cowardly, and vindictive spirit in their possessors; to load our county jails with poachers; to increase the already heavy burdens of the agricultural interest in the shape of county-rates; and to add another false item to those calumniated provisions for the poor, which, in their proper administration, are dictated alike by policy and humanity. But we have already said enough on these subjects. + Don Quixote and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. VÓL. XXXVIII. NO. 76.-Q.R. 46 free |