Still before the ravish'd fight Skim ftrange profpects of delight; Or can imaginary woe A moment's poignant grief betray? My foul, unfpotted, felt the flame, And ev'ry with with Friendship fhar'd. No more thy tranfports, or thy charms, I'll prove, In days of funshine, days of ease, 'Tis then thou'rt dreft in all thy pride, To the poems are added many notes, collected from various authors, and chiefly tending to illuftrate the local and circumftantial allufions in the Eclogues: these illuftrations will add confiderably to the reader's entertainment. ART. VII. The Abbey of Ambrefbury. A Poem. Part I. By Samuel Cadell. 1788. Birch. 4to. 25. ONDEMNED to wade through a quantity of wretched thime, with which many, vainly ftyling themselves Poets, are inceffantly peftering us, we receive a pleasure (not unlike that experienced by a traveller, who, after paffing over a long, difmal, dismal, barren track of country, comes on a fudden to some rich and beautiful profpect,) when a work which difplays any of the charms of true poetry claims our attention. We then feel no difpofition to be niggards of our praife, but are rather in fome danger of lavishing more than is confiftent with the character of cautious critics to bestow. Were we to exprefs the fatiffaction we have, on the whole, received from the perufal of the poem before us, it might probably be deemed exceffive encomium. To avoid this, we will let it fpeak for itself, perfuaded that its own voice, unfupported by the pleadings of any counsellor in the court of Apollo, will gain it a verdict of approbation, Our quotation shall be what the poet has advanced on the fatal effects of monaftic feclufion: page O! were thefe walls permitted to rehearse, 1 There the pale veftal to thy fhrine betray'd, The reader will perceive that Mr. Pope is a favourite author with Mr. Birch, and that he has imitated, with confiderable fuccef, the harmonious verfification of that delightful poet. Were we to object to any parts of this poem, it would be to the faulty rhimes we here and there observe, and to the obfcure manner * The epithet iron, applied to the age of fuperftition, is a very happy one; but the repetition of it, a few lines after, might have been avoided. We could have wifhed, for the fake of variety, that the author had found fome other for the hand of Papal power. + Unblushing does not altogether fatisfy us. in in which the mode of Clifford's death is related, and to the following couplet: Firm was the prop, and hewn from heart of oak, And on its top the Saviour's image spoke *.' But its merits far outweigh its defects, and we have no doubt but the author will meet with encouragement fufficient to induce him to continue his poetic labours on those manuscripts that, as he informs us, are in his poffeffion, which may probably supply more incidents of the fame affe&ting nature with thofe that are related in this first part of the Abbey of Ambrefbury. * There is a vulgarity in the phrafe heart of oak, which fhould exclude it from an elegant poem; and its converfion into our Saviour's Speaking image is too much for a ftroke of the imagination, though not for a miracle. ART. VIII. The Life of Scipio Africanus, and of Epaminondas; intended as a Supplement to Plutarch's Lives. Now first tranflated into English, from the original French of the Abbé Seran de la Tour. By the Rev. R. Parry, Rector of Kemerton, Gloucesterfhire. 8vo. 2 Vols. 10s. Boards. Richardson. 1787. TH HE original publication of thefe Lives was in the year 1739; and the reasons for now tranflating them are given in an Advertisement, viz. The book was put into my hands fome years ago, and recommended to me by a friend whofe judgment I refpected, as a well written, entertaining, and inftructing performance.. I gave it an attentive reading, which afforded me much pleafure and fatisfaction ;* and induced me to amufe myfelf and beguile many heavy hours in tranflating it. The era of hiftory it takes in, is perhaps the most interesting of any in the annals of Greece and Rome; from which we derive almoft our whole knowledge of antiquity: the perfons who are the leading fubjects of it, perhaps the two moft extraordinary great men of the vast number thofe countries, fo fertile in heroes, have produced. The one by the force of immenfe talents and the inexhaustible refources of his own mind, without practice, without experience, became, even when advanced in years, the most able statesman, the moft expert general. He did not barely redeem his country from the moft abject ftate of dependance; but by the moft glorious > victories raised her to be not only the admiration, but the arbitress of Greece. And this he effected with men who were become a proverb for dulnefs and stupidity. The other, when he had hardly arrived at the state of manhood, roufed the fpirits of his fellow-citizens, chafed defpair away, and faved Rome from being abandoned after the dreadful defeat at Cannæ; and by the most patriotic exertion of the most extenfive abilities, and the most brilliant talents, in the fpace of fourteen years, years, attended with an uninterrupted feries of fucceffes, by conquering Hannibal at Zama, and by obliging the Carthaginians to furrender to the flames 500 fhips of war, and acknowledge the fuperiority of the Romans, by becoming their tributaries, laid the foundation of that univerfal empire they foon after fo gloriously attained to. I will detain you no longer than only just to observe of what ufe this publication may poffibly be to us. If ever this country was in a fituation which required the affiftance of all the abilities in the nation, fhe is acknowledged by every party and description of men to be fo at this prefent; permit me then to flatter myself that it is poffible the example of Epaminondas may excite modeft philofophic men to look into themselves, and exert talents to preferve her, which may have been hitherto unprofitable, only from having been unemployed; and charge me not with vanity and prefumption, if I dare to hope that the young gentleman whom our patriot King has placed at the head of affairs may be even still farther encouraged by perufing the Life of Scipio, to bring forward all the power of thofe amazingly extenfive abilities, acknowledged and admired by his most inveterate rivals, which heaven has endowed him with, fuccefsfully to restore his drooping country to that high rank among the nations to which the happy genius of his immortal father once raised her.' The Abbé Seran de la Tour is an agreeable biographer, and his present tranflator has, in general, done him juftice; but feveral fine paffages are debafed by colloquial barbarisms; and Mr. Parry, in tranflating from the French, has not always been fufficiently attentive to the idiom of his own tongue. Speaking of Hannibal, he ftyles him, That illuftrious unfortunate;' and Scipio Africanus is a confulary.' The ufe of adjectives inftead of fubftantives is allowable in French, but intolerable in English. Notwithstanding, however, fuch flight defects, this tranflation may be read with pleasure; especially as the work contains many circumstances that are little known, though relative to the moft illuftrious characters of antiquity. As an example, we shall infert the following paffage: .: ས ༦ A party of Scipio's men brought to him a young Spanish lady of quality, of fuch ftriking beauty that the charmed all beholders. Scipio was of an age in which the paffions exert their empire with almost irresistible force, he was feven and twenty, his perfon noble and amiable; his foldiers doubted not but he would be fenfible to the charms of this young beauty; they thought they presented him with an ineftimable treasure. "You are not mistaken, foldiers," fays he to them, fondly viewing the young Spaniard," behold a prefent the most acceptable you could have made me at any other time; but taken up with the cares of my command, I have not a moment to give to pleafures." 1 Having afterwards received fome account of this young captive, who with her mother was bathed in tears, he learnt that fhe was promised in marriage to a young prince of Spain named Allucio, whom the loved, and who fighed for her alone. He fent to enquire REV. May 1788.. E e for for Allucio, together with the young lady's relations. Young prince," fays he, "I know the regard this lovely girl has for you, I alfo am acquainted with your paffion for her; he has been in fafe hands ever fince the has been in my power, and I now restore her to you as fond, as faithful, and as worthy of you as fhe was before the came under my protection; I am delighted in having it in my power to contribute to fo fweet an union, upon which the happiness of both depends; I trust I do each of you fuch a fervice as gives me a right to expect fome return, and I expect that henceforwards you will become friends to the Roman people. If what I now do for you raifes in your minds any favourable idea of me, believe that Rome is wholly peopled with citizens who would all do the fame in the fame circumftances." Allucio, aftonished with admiration, grafped Scipio's hands, befeeching the gods to affift his weak voice, in expreffing the feelings and defires of his heart to repay the immenfe obligations he owed him. He had judged of the Romans by the Carthaginians, he thought them as rapacious; and in this perfuafion had brought all his treafures with him, to redeem his greatest treasure, his love. Scipio long perfifted to refuse them, but as Allucio ftill prefied his acceptance, he confented they fhould lay them down; 6. but it is only," added he, "that I may be permitted to present them to your bride, and that they may be looked upon as part of her fortune, as much as if fhe had received them from her own family.". After much friendly difpute the Spanish prince's generofity was obliged to fubmit to Scipio's; he therefore acquiefced and returned home with the young princefs, publishing together the praises of their benefactor. "He is not a mere man,' " faid they, to all they met, or if he is, he equals the gods in grandeur and elevation of fentiment; he triumphs over his enemies by his arms, and when he has fubdued them he engages their affections by his kindneffes.' He returned foon after to rejoin Scipio at the head of a corps of cavalry of fourteen hundred men, and never left him during the continuance of the war in Spain. Allucio, not fatisfied with these proofs of his zeal, wished to record his own gratitude and Scipio's generofity, by a teftimony which might convey both the one and the other to pofterity; with this view he caused a votive shield to be made, on which he was reprefented receiving from Scipio's hands the young princefs to whom, he was engaged. I have feen this memorial, as remarkable as it is valuable, in the king's cabinet of medals, where it is at this day, after having lain almoft, nineteen hundred years in the river Rhone, where it is certain Scipio's baggage was loft on his return from Spain to Italy. This fhield was found by a very extraordinary accident in the year 1659; it contains forty-fix marks of pure filver, which is worth about thirteen hundred livres of our (French) money; it is twenty-fix inches in diameter. The plain uniform, taffe which reigns through the whole defign, in the attitudes and the contours, fhews the fimplicity of the arts in thofe days, when, they avoided all foreign ornaments, to be the more attentive to natural beauties," As a farther fpecimen of this work, we had selected the account here, given of the battle of Zama; which is extremely 13. well |