Thus imitated by Anstice, Chor. Poet. p. 39: HELEN! who, in early youth, Named thee with too perfect truth? Fleet and phalanx, tower and town! This elegant translator and admirable scholar appears hardly to have borne in mind the principle of this usage of the Greek tragedians; he seems to have looked upon it rather as a display of the author's ingenuity than as language appropriate to the character and situation of the person, as he only remarks that "puns upon names were not considered by them inconsistent with the dignity of tragedy," and puts them upon the same level with the passage just quoted from the Tempest. He adds another instance from Massinger, perhaps more admissible than that of Shakspeare: Thy name is Angelo, And like that name thou art." The quotation he gives from Chaucer is beside the point. Such trifling in mere serious narration can never be defended. It is passion alone that justifies it. If the propriety of such allusions requires to be further strengthened, beyond the experience we have of those "strange snatches of mirth" that pass across the gloomiest hours even of the wisest and the best, we might show its truth to nature from an authority in which the secrets of the heart are laid bare, far beyond man's powers of development. How exactly parallel to the passage of Euripides quoted above is the sacred text of Genesis xxvii. 36: "Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times." Without entering into the whole question of the significant meaning of Hebrew names, which is quite another matter, the allusion to a person's name in reference to the matter in hand, as in the quotation from the Old Testament, so may be yet further illustrated from a passage in the New, where our Lord, on the solemn occasion of his committing to St. Peter the power of the keys, says Σὺ εἶ ΠΕΤΡΟΣ, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ ΠΕΤΡΑΙ, &c.-Matt. xvi. 18. I adduce this passage (I trust not irreverently), not as an exemplification of the general principle referred to by Scott, Byron, and Shakspeare, but as defensive of the assertion, that allusion to an individual's name is not only perfectly compatible with, but even tends strikingly to heighten, the solemnity of the most serious and awful occasions. The positions I wish to establish are, that nothing can be more true to nature than bursts of playful, though forced mirth, in the midst of our deepest misfortunes, and especially preparatory to a predetermined death; and that it is equally natural to seize on a proper name as the readiest and easiest subject on which to vent that playfulness of spirit. This will not of course excuse the inanity of such conceits when uttered free from the impulse of passion; but it will completely justify by far the greater part of the paronomasia of the Greek tragedians, who employed such language, not for the sake of indulging their own fancies in so obvious and vulgar a jest, but from a nice discrimination of the effects of excited feeling in the most desperate and solemn moments of a serious mind. MY GREAT-UNCLE'S LOVE VERSES. LOOKING, the other day, over the papers of a GreatUncle of mine lately deceased, I chanced upon the following effusion, a trifle indeed, but just such a trifle as I should have guessed my worthy relative, in his youth, to have been guilty of. Within my recollection he was what is called a "gentleman of the old school," of a stately presence, and full of that formal chivalrous courtesy towards all, but especially the fair sex, which used to be the characteristic of high breeding. To the last he clung tenaciously to old fashions and habits of thinking. He had no sympathy with the slipshod, freeand-easy manners of the present day, its leveling propensities and utilitarian maxims. “ ”T is a vulgar, revo lutionary age," he would observe, "and in nothing more so than the diminished respect which is paid to women." Waltzing, to his mind, was "a sign of the times;" to seize a lady of reputation by the waist, and whirl with her round the room till both were dizzy, was an impertinence which he was certain no young fellow in his time would have dreamt of committing. Never was he so happy as, when in a select company of friends, he could persuade some coevous dame of his acquaintance to walk, or rather, hobble through a minuet with him; an exploit which never failed to produce much suppressed merriment among the younger ladies especially, with whom, however, notwithstanding his whims, my great-uncle was a mighty favourite. Indeed, the gallantry of this worthy old gentleman was of a kind which I am inclined to think is now quite out of date. It was founded upon a principle, not the whim or caprice of the moment; it was a tribute paid to the sex rather than the individual,—a homage with which broad lands, and even dimpled cheeks and beaming eyes, had nothing to do. Throughout his life he seems to have regarded the sex in this abstract point of view, for he died a bachelor at last. Perhaps he did not care to run the risk of diminishing, by nearer approach, the reverence with which his imagination had invested the sex; perhaps, after all, his Phyllis was carried off by some plainer-spoken suitor. Often, over his sixth and ultimate glass of wine, growing mellow and garrulous as old men are wont, he would pour forth long histories of his youthful exploits, the hearts he had won, and the beauties with whom he had been acquainted, far superior, he would add, to any which this degenerate age can produce; then waggishly shaking his head at "us youth," he would emit a chuckle, half deprecatory, half applausive, as if to say, ""T is true I was a sad dog, but if the time were to come over again, I know not how it would be amended." But I have observed that he generally concluded such narrations with a sigh, and would sit for a time silent and melancholy. Whether this was owing to the natural reaction of the spirits, at his time of life easily fatigued, or to some tender recollections of the heart, I cannot take upon me to determine; of this, however, I am certain, that Phyllis, or any other young lady, might have done worse than have married my great-uncle in his best days. These are his verses! My soul is like a thirsty flower That spreads its leaves to catch the shower; The flower and I alike must fade. Oh! she is fair, and I am fond; Is it because my tongue is weak, They do not love who woo the fair ; Thus I my weakness have confest : |