Part the Second.

THE POETIC OF CHRISTIANITY.

THE

BOOK I.

GENERAL SURVEY OF CHRISTIAN EPIC POEMS.

CHAPTER I.

POETIC OF CHRISTIANITY IS DIVIDED INTO THREE BRANCHES: POETRY, THE FINE ARTS, AND LITERATURE. THE SIX BOOKS OF THIS SECOND PART TREAT IN AN ESPECIAL MANNER OF POETRY.

THE felicity of the blessed sung by the Christian Homer naturally leads us to consider the effects of Christianity in poetry. In treating of the spirit of that religion, how could we forget its influence on literature and the arts-an influence which has in a manner changed the human mind, and produced in modern Europe nations totally different from those of ancient times?

The reader, perhaps, will not be displeased if we conduct him to Horeb and Sinai, to the summits of Ida and of the Taygetus, among the sons of Jacob and of Priam, into the company of the gods and of the shepherds. A poetic voice issues from the ruins which cover Greece and Idumæa, and cries from afar to the traveller, "There are but two brilliant names and recollections in history-those of the Israelites and of the ancient Greeks."

The twelve books which we have devoted to these literary investigations compose, as we have observed, the second and third parts of our work, and separate the six books on the doctrines from the six books on the ceremonies of the Christian religion.

We shall, in the first place, take a view of the poems in which

that religion supplies the place of mythology, because the epic is the highest class of poetic compositions. Aristotle, it is true, asserts that the epic poem is wholly comprised in tragedy; but might we not think, on the contrary, that the drama is wholly comprised in the epic poem? The parting of Hector and Andromache, Priam in the tent of Achilles, Dido at Carthage, Æneas at the habitation of Evander or sending back the body of the youthful Pallas, Tancred and Erminia, Adam and Eve, are real tragedies, in which nothing is wanting but the division into scenes and the names of the speakers. Was it not, moreover, the Iliad that gave birth to tragedy, as the Margites was the parent of comedy? But if Calliope decks herself with all the ornaments of Melpomene, the former has charms which the latter cannot borrow; for the marvellous, the descriptive, and the digressive, are not within the scope of the drama. Every kind of tone, the comic not excepted, every species of poetic harmony, from the lyre to the trumpet, may be introduced in the epic. The epic poem, therefore, has parts which the drama has not: it consequently requires a more universal genius; it is of course a more complete performance than a tragedy. It seems, in fact, highly probable that there should be less difficulty in composing the five acts of an Edipus than in creating the twenty-four books of an Iliad. The result of a few months' labor is not the monument that requires the application of a lifetime. Sophocles and Euripides were, doubtless, great geniuses; but have they obtained from succeeding ages that admiration and high renown which have been so justly awarded to Homer and Virgil? Finally, if the drama holds the first rank in composition, and the epic only the second, how has it happened that, from the Greeks to the present day, we can reckon but five epic poems, two ancient and three modern: whereas there is not a nation but can boast of possessing a multitude of excellent tragedies.

1 The Margites was a comic or satirical poem attributed to Homer. It is mentioned by Aristotle in his Treatise on Poetry, but no part of it is known to have escaped the ravages of time.

CHAPTER IL

GENERAL SURVEY OF THE POEMS IN WHICH THE MARVELLOUS OF CHRISTIANITY SUPPLIES THE PLACE OF MYTHOLOGY-THE INFERNO OF DANTE-THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED OF TASSO.

LET us first lay down certain principles.

In every epic poem, men and their passions are calculated to occupy the first and most important place.

Every poem, therefore, in which any religion is employed as the subject and not as an accessory, in which the marvellous is the ground and not the accident of the picture, is essentially faulty.

If Homer and Virgil had laid their scenes in Olympus, it is doubtful whether, with all their genius, they would have been able to sustain the dramatic interest to the end. Agreeably to this remark, we must not ascribe to Christianity the languor that pervades certain poems in which the principal characters are supernatural beings; this languor arises from the fault of the composition. We shall find in confirmation of this truth, that the more the poet observes a due medium in the epic between divine and human things, the more entertaining he is, if we may be allowed to use an expression of Boileau. To amuse, for the purpose of instructing, is the first quality required in poetry.

Passing over several poems written in a barbarous Latin style, the first work that demands our attention is the Divina Comedia of Dante. The beauties of this singular production proceed, with few exceptions, from Christianity: its faults are to be ascribed to the age and the bad taste of the author. In the pathetic and the terrific, Dante has, perhaps, equalled the greatest poets. The details of his poem will be a subject of future consideration.

Modern times have afforded but two grand subjects for an epic poem-the Crusades, and the Discovery of the New World. Malfilâtre purposed to sing the latter. The Muses still lament the premature decease of this youthful poet before he had time to

accomplish his design. This subject, however, has the disadvantage of being foreign for a Frenchman; and, according to another principle, the truth of which cannot be contested, a poet ought to adopt an ancient subject, or, if he select a modern one, should by all means take his own nation for his theme.

The mention of the Crusades reminds us of the Jerusalem Delivered. This poem is a perfect model of composition. Here you may learn how to blend subjects together without confusion. The art with which Tasso transports you from a battle to a lovescene, from a love-scene to a council, from a procession to an enchanted palace, from an enchanted palace to a camp, from an assault to the grotto of an anchorite, from the tumult of a besieged city to the hut of a shepherd, is truly admirable. His characters are drawn with no less ability. The ferocity of Argantes is opposed to the generosity of Tancred, the greatness of Solyman to the splendor of Rinaldo, the wisdom of Godfrey to the craft of Aladin; and even Peter the hermit, as Voltaire has remarked, forms a striking contrast with Ismeno the magician. As to the females, coquetry is depicted in Armida, sensibility in Erminia, and indifference in Clorinda. Had Tasso portrayed the mother, he would have made the complete circle of female characters. The reason of this omission must, perhaps, be sought in the nature of his talents, which possessed more charms than truth, and greater brilliancy than tenderness.

Homer seems to have been particularly endowed with genius, Virgil with sensibility, Tasso with imagination. We should not hesitate what place to assign to the Italian bard, had he some of those pensive graces which impart such sweetness to the sighs of the Mantuan swan; for he is far superior to the latter in his characters, battles, and composition. But Tasso almost always fails when he attempts to express the feelings of the heart; and, as the traits of the soul constitute the genuine beauties of a poem, he necessarily falls short of the pathos of Virgil.

If the Jerusalem Delivered is adorned with the flowers of exquisite poetry,-if it breathes the youth, the loves, and the afflic tions, of that great and unfortunate man who produced this master-piece in his juvenile years,—we likewise perceive in it the faults of an age not sufficiently mature for such a high attempt as an epic poem. Tasso's measure of eight feet is hardly ever

full; and his versification, which often exhibits marks of haste, cannot be compared to that of Virgil, a hundred times tempered in the fire of the Muses. It must likewise be remarked that the ideas of Tasso are not of so fair a family as those of the Latin bard. The works of the ancients may be known, we had almost said, by their blood. They display not, like us, a few brilliant ideas sparkling in the midst of a multitude of commonplace observations, so much as a series of beautiful thoughts, which perfectly harmonize together, and have a sort of family likeness. It is the naked group of Niobe's simple, modest, blushing children, holding each other by the hand with an engaging smile, while a chaplet of flowers, their only ornament, encircles their brows.

After the Jerusalem Delivered, it must be allowed that something excellent may be produced with a Christian subject. What would it then have been had Tasso ventured to employ all the grand machinery which Christianity could have supplied? It is obvious that he was deficient in boldness. His timidity has obliged him to have recourse to the petty expedients of magic, whereas he might have turned to prodigious account the tomb of Jesus Christ, which he scarcely mentions, and a region hallowed by so many miracles. The same timidity has occasioned his failure in the description of heaven, while his picture of hell shows many marks of bad taste. It may be added that he has not availed himself as much as he might have done of the Mohammedan religion, the rites of which are the more curious as being the less known. Finally, he might have taken some notice of ancient Asia, of Egypt so highly renowned, of Babylon so vast, and Tyre so haughty, and of the times of Solomon and Isaias. How could the muse, when visiting the land of Israel, forget the harp of David? Are the voices of the prophets no longer to be heard on the summits of Lebanon? Do not their holy shades still appear beneath the cedars and among the pines? Has the choir of angels ceased to sing upon Golgotha, and the brook Cedron to murmur? Surely the patriarchs, and Syria, the nursery of the world, celebrated in some part of the Jerusalem Delivered, could not have failed to produce a grand effect.1

The reader's attention may here be invited to Palestine, an Oxford prize poem, written by Mr. Reginald Heber. It derives its various and exquisite