His intention of noticing all Mr. Paine's imitations, c. the Editor soon found himself compelled to abandon. Some are so remote or obscure, that the most patient collator could hardly hope to detect them; others, as they are obvious and direct, cannot escape the most careless reader. As the labour of correcting the press is new to him, the Editor is sensible that many false quantities, &c. have passed without observation; and he is extremely sorry to find, that not a few unwarrantable rhymes and accents, all of which he had purposed to distinguish by italicks, are not so distinguished. For these negligencies and others, some of a more, some of a less pardonable character, he has indeed no excuse: he cannot however but hope, that this frank, not to say humble, confession of his offences may in some degree soften the censure, which, as he feels himself to deserve it, the Editor does not expect to avoid. NOTES TO THE COLLEGE EXERCISES. THEME. AN UNDEVOUT ASTRONOMER IS MAD." Brighter the glories of the unbounded God. The whole paragraph is not inelegantly imitated from several passages of the Paradise Lost. It shews that Milton was among the authors, with whom Mr. Paine was early conversant. His acquaintance, however, does not appear to have ripened into an intimacy with him, who describes himself, ast able to ................feed on thoughts, that voluntary move p. 7, 1. 13, 14. Come then, sweet nymph, thy mildest breath impart, Of this personification the part, where the Evening is seen, as a nymph, playing on the pipe, is eminently happy. The whole is indeed full of Sicilian tenderness. I know not whether Collins might not have suggested the imagery. p. 8, 1. 2. Whispered invitement to the bower of joy. The word invitement, if not, as I think it is, from the Poet's own mint, is not current with good authors; it is obsolescent, perhaps obsolete. p. 8, 1. 4. Urged their request, and won my willing soul. The zephyrs in this and the four preceding lines are evidently copied from these fine verses: .............now gentle gales, Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole Milton, as Warton suggests, here remembered his Elegy on Bishop Andrewes, once master of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Serpit odoriferas per opes levis aura Favoni, Aura sub innumeris humida nata rosis. Stole is from Shakespeare, and balmy spoils, odoriferas opes, probably suggested Dryden's (ann: mirab:) guilty sweets. p. 8, 1. 9. Enhedged with flowers, and shrubs, and vines, and thorns, Enhedged is one of Mr. Paine's own words, but, as it is not unpoetical, it is perhaps worthy of preservation. p. 8, l. 10. Which in luxuriant confusion grew. This line, partly from the properties of its two leading words, and partly from the deep and stridulous aspiration, required in pronouncing the relative pronoun, with which the line begins, is miserably sluggish; and of the same faults, other examples might be easily cited. Indeed Mr. Paine's ear, at least in early life, was but little enamoured of the full and stately harmony of Milton's rhythm. His blank verse neither moves .................like a proud steed reined, nor like some ethereal power can it be described, as Risen from a river, o'er the marish glides, And gather's round fast at the labourer's heel, ' His lines seem to creep tamely along, Streaking the ground with sinuous trace; or else they are seen Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait. With that canon of Prosody, which requires that, in blank verse, the pauses should never in two successive lines fall in the same place, he was either not then acquainted, or, if acquainted with it, he considered himself, as at liberty to depart from a rule, to which he perhaps found it difficult to submit. p. 8, l. 24. As waves on waves, so generations crowd. From Horace, Ep: ad Jul: Flor: v. 175 sq. ...Hæres Hæredem alterius, velut unda supervenit undam. p. 9, 1. 5. E'er sweetly smile to lure us from the storm. Ever, when used, not as an intensive, but as equivalent to always, does not seem to admit of contraction; especially when, as in this line, it holds the first place. p. 9, 1. 11. Their silent tread I hear. Silent is not here to be understood, as signifying an absolute privation of sound. The poet means to say, that the footfall was so soft, as not to be audible, except to a strict and listening attention. p. 10, l. 5. Of Sirius descries more distant worlds. Sirius, though of three syllables, is always pronounced in the time of two. p. 10, 1. 6. These are thy wonders, great Jehovah, these. From Parad: Lost, b. iv. p. 153 sqq. and Thompson's Hymn. |