ART. II.

Britannia a National Epic Poem, in Twenty Books. To which is prefixed, a Critical Dissertation on Epic Machinery. By John Ogilvie, D. D. F.R.S. Edinburgh. 4to. Printed at Aberdeen. 1801.

PP. 623.

TE HE momentous period, which we have for some time contemplated, has rendered us familiar with great events. The examination of an Epic Poem was formerly a task of importance, which required much expenditure of critical oil; and which occurred so seldom, that it formed a kind of era in our labours but circumstances are now greatly changed: epic poems are become" as plenty as blackberries," and are seldom longer lived than the constitution of a republic, or the celebrity of a German drama. Our expectations, therefore, are not much more excited by this title, than by one which announces a more humble and unpretending form of composition. On these occasions, indeed, we sometimes have recourse to the physiognomy of the book; and when this presents nothing conclusive, we are much gratified if the author courteously permits us to study his own effigy in front of his work. In this respect, Dr. Ogilvie has been particularly kind; since he has obliged us with a three-quarters representation of his person, from a comparison of which with the effigies of the great Epic Poets, some conjecture may be formed respecting his powers.

The preliminary dissertation contains a defence of the necessity of Epic Machinery, in opposition to Mr. Hayley. We confess that this vindication appears to be unnecessary: the best answer to Mr. Hayley's doubts would have been found in a composition framed on the antient model, with the power and effect of antient poetry; and we are much inclined to impute the ill success of modern epic writers to a want of poetical energy, rather than to their employment of classical machinery. Indeed, if the propriety of admitting such imagery has not been already established by the several critics on the three great Epic Poems, it is in vain to repeat their observations: but, if the strength of the moderns be unequal to the ponderous arms of the antients, there is some wisdom in chusing more manageable weapons.

"The weaker warrior takes a lighter shield,"

according to Mr. Pope's translation; and to those who would accommodate the plan of epic poetry to the present state of Genius, we may apply the proverb, that he who cannot be an Erasmus must think of becoming a Eishop.

In reality, Dr. Ogilvie has adopted a system of machinery of an intermediate kind, by following Dryden's invention of

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the agency of Guardian Angels; a species of beings to which the century before the last allowed some degree of credit. They are now as much superannuated as the heathen mythology, and must principally depend, for their effect, on the talents of the mind which puts them in motion. In Dryden's time, this idea would have had the merit of novelty; in our's, it could only succeed by being happily carried into execution. As the author has thus departed from the classical models, he ought to have spared his censure of the enchanters and elfin knights of Ariosto and Spenser. Their poems require neither apologies in prose, nor volumes of annotations, in order to be read and admired; and indeed, if the admissibility of supernatural agency be once conceded, the Durindana of Orlando stands on the same footing with the celestial armour of Achilles.

The story of Dr. Ogilvie's Poem is the establishment of a Trojan colony, under Brutus, in this island; one of those fictions which admit sufficient interest and ornament to justify the choice of the Poet, and to which the present taste for black-letter reading is particularly favorable. It is written in blank verse; the employment of which the author vindicates, in his preliminary dissertation, against the objections of Dr. Johnson. On this question of the comparison of rhime with blank verse, we shall only observe that whatever is the best poetry is the best of either. If an author can write such heroic verse as that of Milton or Shakspeare, he may safely leave his performance to the protection of its own merits. Dr. Johnson, we believe, has made very few converts on this subject.

One rule of the Epopeia, however, has been infringed by the present author. It has been understood that the agency of superior beings should only be introduced on important occasions: but, in the poem before us, the supernatural personages are in a state of constant activity. The Guardian Angel of the country descries the approach of the Trojan fleet from the rocks, which any good pair of human eyes might have perceived; and she afterward appears to the invaders in the disguise of a shepherd, to inform them that they have landed on an island, a truth which they might have previously guessed, and that they will be opposed by a race of giants,-a fable for which we can discover no occasion. The good and evil spirits, after the action commences, become so very busy, that the intended heroes of the piece shrink into mere puppets, and inspire the reader with no interest in their conduct or destiny. In other respects, the fable of the poem is not liable to objection; and the author displays, on many occasions, good sense and erudition The vital principle of poetry, however,

is wanting; and the machinery and classical allusions of Dr. Ogilvie have the same resemblance to the verse of Homer and Milton, which a leaden statue, fresh from Piccadilly, bears to the sculpture of Phidias or Praxiteles.

For this inferiority, we do not mean to blame the author: we are truly sorry that our duty obliges us to point out his poetical defects; and we should certainly have received much. more pleasure from reading as well as from criticizing his work, if it had been intitled to higher commendation. We have industriously looked for passages of merit, and we shall not fail to produce some of those which gave us more satisfaction than the rest.

The invocation, at the opening of the poem, affords a good specimen of the respectable mediocrity which we have ascribed to this writer's talents:

Thou Power ethereal, by whatever name
Hail'd in celestial climes, by Heav'n ordain'd
To guard the seat of empire, to exalt,
O'er other lands, Britannia's envied Isle!
Oh! from the ragged cliff, whence thy wide ken
O'erlooks the world of waters, and surveys
Th' Atlantic's tributary waves; incline

Thine ear propitious!-When th' Eternal call'd
From night, this rude orb, with umbrageous woods
O'erspread, and roughen'd with the cloud-wrapt hill,
Thou saw'st the deep recoiling, as the cliffs
Of Albion tower'd amid th' investing main,
Sublimely eminent! Thou to the Sun
Beheldst her mountains flaming, and her vales
Teeming with copious pastures. But to rouze
Her sons to godlike deeds; to fix the reign
Of Science, Glory, Freedom, Wealth, and Right,
Amidst her better times, while yet the Queen
Of Nations flourish'd, in her great domain;
These were thy nobler tasks.-Indulgent, now
Attend! for, rising to her theme, the Spirit
Divine essays to bid her song resound

Down the long vale, where Time's evolving forms
Lie wrapt in dim futurity :-to Man

In ages yet unborn; by Thee inspir'd,

O'er climes remote she spreads her Country's fame.
Upborne by Thee, she darts her steady gaze
O'er periods lessening in extended range,

And through the shade that wraps the first of days
Beholds a Desert, where the busy throng

Now swarms. The monarch of the waste she eyes,
The wild wolf raging with the lust of prey,
Here, on his solitary walk; the wild
Now still, and to his hunger-prompted howl

Anon

Anon re-echoing. There a mightier race
She sees, surpassing Albion's native sons;
Gigantic shapes, that, in the bull's rough hide,
Or shagged vestments of the brouzing goat,
O'ershading ruthless hearts, and grasping fierce
Some oak's broad fragment, or unshapen mass
Of rude and knobbed ore; along the wood
Stride grim and horrible. Rouz'd by their tread
Wolves darting rapid to the cavern's mouth
Keen with the rage of hunger, and intent
To bear some morsel to their famish'd young;
Eyeing the grizzly savage as he moves,

Gnash their white tusks, and lashing in their rage
The rock, and howling, seek their inmost den.'

We shall now introduce one of Dr. Ogilvie's supernatural personages:

Though back recoiling, as he eyed the Power
Divine; the hell-born Demon yet appear'd
In mortal shape, and near Androgeus stood
A form stupendous, breathing horrid war,
And striking terror with amaze in all!
Black were his arms, yet cast a livid glare
Around. His shield, impenetrable orb,
O'ershaded half the nations as he moved,
Bloating the flaming noon! Dim o'er his helm
Nodded the sable plumage! Fiery rays

Shot from his eyes, and flitting o'er his sword

The blue gleam trembled, as from sulphurous ore.'

From this sulphureous light, the apparition might perhaps be deemed by the author characteristically national. Bloating the noon is not an English expression; nor is our word bloated, which has a sense different from that intended by the author, ever used but as an adjective. Perhaps Dr. O. meant to write blotting the noon,' in allusion to Milton's sublime expression of radiant files dazzling the moon.-A simile, in the same book, was evidently written with a view to Milton's imagery: As when two clouds, with elemental flame Impregn'd, on heaven's aerial concave mix In night portentous; and the solemn peal, Slow rolling o'er the void, proclaims their war By dreadful intervals! while all beneath

Shakes at each blast, and mortals deem the Lord
Of Nature rising in his wrath :'-

The reader may compare this passage with that of our divine poet:

"As when two black clouds

With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on

Over the Caspian, then stand front to front,
Hov'ring a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air :".

We shall next transcribe another of Dr. Ogilvie's similes, from a battle-scene:

As when the North from all her mountains pours
Abroad the tempest; on resounding wings
It comes; and loosening from the shagged rock
A time-worn fragment, hanging o'er the verge,
In thunder hurls it to the tide: Such seem'd
Thy strength, Romerus, and before thine arm
Thus sunk the nations! Nor in stature less,
Nor less in acts the giant King appear'd:
Wielding the massy oak, he clear'd the path
Amid the bands; and void of conduct, aim'd
By might to conquer, and ungovern'd sway.'

This passage is certainly intitled to some credit: but the author has lessened its effect by representing his giant, in the succeeding lines, as swearing at the head of his troops :blaspheming heaven.'

Another simile, in the same book, appears not very illustrative of its object; though, in point of mere language, it is one of the best written passages in the poem:

As when the sun on India's favour'd clime
Pours his first rays, the feeble stars that gild
Heav'n's arch, in darkness veil their lucid orbs;
Nor from the shores of Java or Tridore,
While yet the western hemisphere lies wrapt
In night, are seen the solar globes remote,
That lighten other worlds; all by one sun
Suffused, or deeply shaded: thus the rout,
But late so dreadful, from Locrinus' eye
Shrunk back; nor other than that hero secm'd
To rule, and to direct the rage of war.'
The following lines are not undeserving of praise:
But He, the spirit celestial, from her birth
Ordain'd to guide this wanderer through the maze
Of life; whose hand had held, in many a change,
Th' impending peril from its aim, beheld

His charge with heedful eye. Soft on his wings,
That hover'd o'er the space, he caught the dews
Of night; the noxious vapours as they rose,
Dank mists, and chilling blasts, the power dispell'd:
And round the virgin breathed ethereal air;
Pure stream, that to the secret springs of life
Gives just and temperate harmony. Thus safe,
He held her sense in long oblivion drown'd.'

A long