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"Faintlier heard; when from within the

cave

A harp rang out; a youth with hurried tread

Sprang into day, and, gasping, turn'd his head.

The very heart within me seem'd to break At the shrill sadness of that following shriek."-P. 201.

The shriek, and misty figure, "veiled in snowy white," melting into "blindest, blackest, shade," is certain

and the eternal regions of the blessed expand before him, and around him, and all is love.

"And one of roseate cheek and sunny hair, With starr'd and azured vestments, lean'd her head

O'er a wan youth, who waked as from the
dead;

Drew life and love like sun-light at his eyes,
And held his breath in speechless ecstasies,
Then dove-like murmured, while delight
grew pain,

P. 205.

ly an improvement upon the too pal-Eurydice! thou then art mine again !'” pable and speech-making Eurydice of the older versions. The Pontiff youth, under the despairing passion of his grief, tearing away his harp-strings, is finely conceived.

The charm of the Lyre has departed

from him.

"The serpent cast Her venom on him, as he bounding pass'd Beneath the gnarl'd o'erbranching oaks; the glare

Of panthers met him from their briery lair."-P. 202.

The paths lead him by the loathed image of the human Bacchus-he finds himself in the holiest place amongst the slumbering Bacchants-he awakes them and drags their idol of Bacchus from its base, and tramples in the earth the "mortal-visaged God." The Bacchants, infuriate, pour forth the Dithyrambic rage, seize and tear him in pieces. Mr Elton does not forget the bodiless head floating down the Hebrus, and the "frigida lingua," still crying "Ah, miseram Eurydicen!"nor is he deterred by the burlesque of Gay in his Trivia.

"Headless he sank; but woods, and glades, and rocks,

Told back the voice of his last agony

Eurydice! ah, poor Eurydice!'

The last, the only sounds his tongue had
shaped,

Still quiver'd on the lip when life escap'd.
The stream, that his departed visage roll'd
Along its ruddy tides, that echo told;
And all the wild roar died along the steep,

And those who wreaked the vengeance
paused to weep."-P. 204.

The heathen poets here terminate the story-but the immortality of the soul was a part of the Orphic creed. Mr Elton, therefore, justly and with great beauty extends his vision. The poet is again with Orpheus where, in the cavern, the descent, the brazen door is passed. His footsteps are on the jasper floor; all vanishes in mist;

Nothing can be happier than this conclusion; a word more would have been an interruption to that perfect bliss of reunion-at once the poet's happiness, his dream, and his belief!

Oh, that he should awake from this and feel the chill of the gray morning cold upon his widowed breast!

Much as we admire the Orpheus, we are almost tempted to recommend Mr Elton to give a rifacimento of this fascinating poem. The superiority of those portions that are in blank verse will be striking to every reader. We do not object to rhyme we would not disenchant the tale of rhyme-but we would ever have rhyme tell. When it comes not with its due pause, it is trifling; its beauty is that it gives precision to thought, and encloses it, supplying the place of the more distinct ictus of the Greek and Latin prosody. When rhyme terminates a sentiment or an action it gives it the muse's stamp, securing it from addition or interruption as a poetic axiom: it has a final value. We cannot approve of the innovation of ineffective rhyming by which the imitators of the Shelley school make it a passing impertinence, with no apparent object but an unnecessary intrusion. The monotony of periodical termination may be better avoided by transferring the rhymes, making their recurrence irregular, as in Lycidas (but Milton's ear was perfect; his sense of hearing was probably sharpened by the deprivation of sight), and also by the use of the triplet, in which Dryden is so happy, and so expressively and finally closes the sense of a passage.

But why may we not speak a few words of Orpheus himself—Orpheus the Poet! Who was Orpheus? What did he do? The Poet, the modern Sophist, the Utilitarian, will variously

answer.

Some deny his existence, and some read all poetry by the rule of contrary. We envy not such, who would too severely put poetry to the question, and who think they confer a benefit on mankind by stripping her more naked than ever she was born, and subjecting her limbs to the torture to chronicle her miserable confessions as truth. We are content to know that trees followed him, tigers danced and crouched before his lyre. Neither do we envy the success of that exact enquiry by which some have pretended to have discovered, that the music of Orpheus arose not from his lyre but from the pestle and mortar! who resolve the recovery of Eurydice from Hades, or, according to the advertisements, "from under the ribs of death," into the efficacy of medicine administered by the first Apothecary, Orpheus!

The powers ascribed to Orpheus, making every allowance for poetical embellishments, are, indeed, extensive enough; he asserts in the Argonautics, with sufficient gravity, that he had "trod the dark way of Tanarus into Hell for the sake of his spouse, trusting to his harp." Certainly, nothing has come down to us indicative of his wonderful charm. The most whimsical power ascribed to a verse of Orpheus, "the wise mage," is in the Cyclops, where the coward Satyr proposes the repetition as a charm to bid the monster's eye walk out of his head of its own accord. We are not likely to meet with panthers in our walks; but, if Mr Wombwell's van should break down and pour forth its mon

sters, we should be loth to trust to the most concentrated extracts of his power from any of the works that bear his name. Repeat some of his best lines with the volume in hand in a pretty thick wood, and never suspect that the trees will follow you, nor fear complaints before magistrates of your oral depredations!

There are some strong and picturesque passages in the Argonautics, for instance, the Cave of Chiron ; but, excepting some few isolated scenes, there is little poetry in the work. There is a pretty story in the argument (why so called we know not) to his Lithics, which, though told with great simplicity, shows a very successful attempt at descriptive precision and even studied sweetness and elegance of versification.

Orpheus, in his way to offer his annual sacrifice to the Sun, meets Theodamas, whom he persuades to accompany him. He gives a very interesting and graphic narrative of the cause which led his father to offer sacrifice on the altar of that deity. This introduces a discussion, and leads the way to the poems that follow, on the merits and powers of various stones, the possession of which will lead to the attainment of the owner's wishes, and guard him from the dangers of poison. The scenery of the place of sacrifice, and the accompaniment of the two dogs, who attend of their own accord, conclude the little narrative with some exquisitely beautiful lines, as expressive as any in the range of pastoral poetry. We offer a translation:

I love the converse of a man of sense,
Better than gold, that masters all who seek it
For, being bent on sacrifice to the Sun,

I met my prudent friend Theodamas,

Towards the city, from the country wending.
I took him by the hand, and spake him thus:
"Townward to-morrow, my good friend, unless
Most urgent business call you there to-day;
For now, methinks, the very god himself
Sent thee to meet me bent on festival.
Consent, then, come with me, for blessedness
Attends the sacrifice that good men offer;
And the immortal gods rejoice, when men
The worthiest do these processions lead.
Nor shall I take you far aside; for, see
The hill, above my grounds, whither I tend.
There, when I was a stripling, once alone
I ventured, following two birds escaped-
My two tame partridges: each, as it heard
Its name (I called to them), stood still awhile,

But soon as I held out my hand to take him,
Flew off, avoiding me-and in my speed
And earnestness, I fell upon my face;
Then, rising up, pursued them further on.
But when the summit of the hill I reach'd,
They, sending forth a sudden and shrill cry,
Swift as an arrow, to a leafy beech
Flew upward for they had a serpent seen,
A deadly monster, with his open jaws,
And full of death, rush on them, unobserved
By me, though near, for on the birds alone
My eyes were fix'd; until I saw the beast
Lifting his horrid neck from the low ground,
Hiding his body for more perfect snare.
None would have said I followed partridges,
That then had seen me fly with swift feet back;
Nor thought the feet that bore me were a child's.
For fear, my master, bade me imitate

The broad-wing'd eagle and the fleeting wind:
For death was nigh me, and full oft the tongue
Of the fell monster touch'd my garment's edge;
And, beyond rescue, I had been devour'd,
Had not swift thought urged me with speed to fly
To the altar that to Phoebus ancient men
Had built The fire had left there unconsumed
The branch of a wild olive tree: I seized it,
And turn'd to combat with that serpent dire—
That, when he saw me, maddening for the fight,
Roused all his rage, and, in himself involved,
Curl'd inward, circling his enormous back
Fold within fold interminable, raised

Over the altar his high-crested throat,

With hisses that my utmost clamours drown'd.

Then with a blow on that infrangible

Hard mountain monster's head, my weak staff broke:

But I was not to die by that fell beast;

For two, my father's faithful dogs, that tended

The feeding flocks at distance, knew my cry,

And to me ran-for I had ever been

Their kind companion-and on them the serpent
Rush'd, while I bounded onward to the plain
Precipitate; and as a hare, escaped

The eagle's frightful talons, lieth conceal'd
Amid thick bushes-so among the flocks,
As I were one of the close-crowded goats,
Crouching I hid me from the monster dire.
Henceforth my father yearly, while he lived,
Did to this saving altar victims bring,
And to the Sun pay worthy recompense
For his preserved child; and thenceforth I,
Choosing from out my herds a calf, spring-born,
Fattening and sleek from his fresh mother's milk,
Lead my procession forth of pleasant friends

Unto the sacred altar on the hill.

And the two serpent-slaying dogs ascend,
Each following, and of his own accord.

And far about the altar of the god

All sweetness is, green sward, and softest spring
Of fragrant herbage; and thick shade of elms
Rests underneath; and near them, at the base
Of a smooth rock, perennial waters gush,
And in their foam up-bubbling, intermixed,
Pour ever forth sweet music like a song.
Then let us haste, for we must not delay [deny],
Nor feast, nor service to the gods," I said;

And he in his instinctive knowledge wise
Replied" And may the world-illuming God
Free you from every ill, and send you home
Into a house, whose riches bring no tears.
Remembering this your goodness—nor will I,
Without my gift, suffer you to depart.
And that the god may hear when you ascend
With your due sacrifice, into your hands
This shining wondrous crystal I deliver."

The philosophy of Orpheus was brought from Egypt, where can be discovered a clue to the mythology of the Greeks and Romans. The veiled Isis was a symbol of the inner or esoteric doctrine, that the world was Deity. Orpheus makes the Sun a type of the universe, and even its source. He seems to have inculcated a more material pantheism, whereas the Egyptians connected their solar and planetary worship with the supposed transmission of the souls of the virtuous ancestors of mankind to the Stars. Hesiod appears to glance at this belief, though without the reference to a solar translation, in his good demons. This may, however, have been a branch of the exoteric or outward doctrine promulgated to the people for social and political purposes, as the residence of the virtuous souls in the stars meant probably nothing more than a physical energy.

Having spoken thus of the works and philosophy of Orpheus, it would seem very ungrateful, with Vossius and others, to deny his existence, and assert that Orpheus, Musæus, and Linus, were merely names deduced from

Great

the Phoenician language. Origen doubts not the personality of these, but whether their books had been preserved. Plato, however, speaks of Orpheus as a real person, and refers not merely to the Orphic writings, but to those of the individual Orpheus himself. He was supposed to have lived before the Trojan era. doubts exist whether the remains extant are genuine. They were produced by Onomacutus, who lived in the time of Xerxes and the Pisistratidæ, but it should be added, he was banished on a charge of having issued forged oracles. It has been objected to the genuineness of the Argonautics, that we have authority for Orpheus having used the Doric dialect; but the objection is not valid, for Onomacutus may have changed it for the Homeric; and it appears more probable that he should have been in possession of certain fragments, which he made the groundwork of the poems, than that he should have been their entire inventor, as the name of Orpheus was too well known, many of his traditionary verses being dispersed abroad, to render such a forgery plausible.

C

VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLXXIII.

But soon as I held out my hand to take him,
Flew off, avoiding me-and in my speed
And earnestness, I fell upon my face;
Then, rising up, pursued them further on.
But when the summit of the hill I reach'd,
They, sending forth a sudden and shrill cry,
Swift as an arrow, to a leafy beech

Flew upward for they had a serpent seen,
A deadly monster, with his open jaws,
And full of death, rush on them, unobserved
By me, though near, for on the birds alone
My eyes were fix'd; until I saw the beast
Lifting his horrid neck from the low ground,
Hiding his body for more perfect snare.
None would have said I followed partridges,
That then had seen me fly with swift feet back ;
Nor thought the feet that bore me were a child's.
For fear, my master, bade me imitate

The broad-wing'd eagle and the fleeting wind:
For death was nigh me, and full oft the tongue
Of the fell monster touch'd my garment's edge;
And, beyond rescue, I had been devour'd,
Had not swift thought urged me with speed to fly
To the altar that to Phoebus ancient men
Had built The fire had left there unconsumed
The branch of a wild olive tree: I seized it,
And turn'd to combat with that serpent dire-
That, when he saw me, maddening for the fight,
Roused all his rage, and, in himself involved,
Curl'd inward, circling his enormous back
Fold within fold interminable, raised

Over the altar his high-crested throat,

With hisses that my utmost clamours drown'd.

Then with a blow on that infrangible

Hard mountain monster's head, my weak staff broke:

But I was not to die by that fell beast;

For two, my father's faithful dogs, that tended

The feeding flocks at distance, knew my cry,

And to me ran-for I had ever been

Their kind companion-and on them the serpent
Rush'd, while I bounded onward to the plain
Precipitate; and as a hare, escaped
The eagle's frightful talons, lieth conceal'd
Amid thick bushes-so among the flocks,
As I were one of the close-crowded goats,
Crouching I hid me from the monster dire.
Henceforth my father yearly, while he lived,
Did to this saving altar victims bring,
And to the Sun pay worthy recompense
For his preserved child; and thenceforth I,
Choosing from out my herds a calf, spring-born,
Fattening and sleek from his fresh mother's milk,
Lead my procession forth of pleasant friends

Unto the sacred altar on the hill.

And the two serpent-slaying dogs ascend,

Each following, and of his own accord.

And far about the altar of the god

All sweetness is, green sward, and softest spring
Of fragrant herbage; and thick shade of elms
Rests underneath; and near them, at the base
Of a smooth rock, perennial waters gush,
And in their foam up-bubbling, intermixed,
Pour ever forth sweet music like a song.
Then let us haste, for we must not delay [deny],
Nor feast, nor service to the gods," I said;

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