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alone, that sublime simplicity which characterizes their taste so deci dedly, in every other of the fine arts.'

Instead of multiplying, as if at pleasure, the hundred and twentyfive signs, the first product of the different modifications of the letters established by musical interpretation, M. Perne has reduced them to ninety characters. Of these, one half are assigned to vocal, the other half to instrumental music. But this is not all: he has demonstrated that according to the general practice in use among the ancient musicians, forty-four characters might suffice; and answer all the purposes of the ninety; being employed in pairs, which might be used as a single note: and when these forty-four characters were employed, and considered separately, the number of effective notes would not exceed twenty-two.'

'Six tables, drawn up with a degree of intelligence very uncommon, and very neatly executed, illustrate completely to the eye, all the laborious propositions and demonstrations employed in this important memoir by M. Perne.'

We omit for the present, the application of the author's principles to the different modes of Greek music, being desirous of hastening to the last conclusions which establish the reality of M Perne's discovery of Greek musical notation, devested of the difficulties and complication with which it has hitherto been considered as enveloped: conclusions, by which he has established the analogy between the ancient and modern systems of notation; and furnished the means of translating, with great facility, the ancient notation and its alphabetic character, into the notes of modern music: a discovery, unexpected indeed, but perfectly made out by means of the tables of M. Perne already mentioned.'

Lastly, the commission appointed to examine the labours of M. Perne, and the class of the institute to whom is consigned the subject of music, are of opinion, that this gentleman, by the extent and variety of his musical knowledge and attainment-by the resources of his age -his incessant and courageous application-is destined to disperse the clouds which have hitherto obscured the true knowledge of the music, and musical notation of the ancient Greeks; and that he deserves to be encouraged in the pursuit of this beautiful, but laborious enterprise.' The remainder of the report does not contain sufficient matter of interest to induce us to extend this account of it. T. C.

ART. V.-Demetrius. The Hero of the Don. An epic poem. By Alexis Eustaphieve. Boston. 1818.

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ONTENELLE being once asked what was the most worthless of creatures, answered-a bad poet. The celebrated academician meant, no doubt, a poet by profession; and the author of Demetrius not being, if we are rightly informed, of this description, escapes so heavy a judgment. We collect from an account of his work given in a magazine of New York, that he is the consul of his imperial majesty of all the Russias, for the state of Massachusetts; and had before attempted our language in sundry prosetracts, tending to the instruction of princes and reformation of states--Mr. Eustaphieve may be a worthy man and a good consul, and a passable prose writer; but he is certainly a very bad poet; and it is an aggravation of his guilt in this respect, that he

has not as we are entitled to infer from his station-the vocation of poverty to poetize. He prints in a foreign tongue thousands of lines miscalled verses, out of the mere wantonness of a devious ambition, and thus officiously provokes the jealousy of professional scribblers and the ire of surly critics.

If' Demetrius' was really designed for the American public, it presents the most extravagant case of literary presumption with which we are acquainted. We could allow a foreigner, not trained from infancy to our language, to make trial of our indulgence and his own skill, with a sonnet, or a madrigal, or a familiar epistle in verse: so much would not be understood to demand great powers of mind, or mastery of expression; it would be a moderate and harmless exercise for him, and might not be insupportably oppressive for his American friends. But to assail us with an epopee, and that of considerable volume, of which the subject, too, is wholly alien-of the least possible interest, to us, is an unconscionable and unpardonable outrage upon our good nature and vernacular sensibilities. For the sake of illustrating the incivility of the procedure, and preparing those who may have courage to look into ' Demetrius,' to judge of the extent of the author's boldness and failure, we shall transcribe, at the threshold, what Dryden and Johnson say of the qualifications of the true epic poet. 'He,' remarks Dryden, is the only man proper for an epic poem who to his natural endowments of a large invention, a ripe judgment, and a strong memory, has joined the knowledge of the liberal arts and sciences, and particularly moral philosophy, the mathematics, geography, and history; and, with all these qualifications, is born a poet; knows and can practice the variety of numbers, and is master of the language in which he writes.' By the general consent of critics,' says Johnson, the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions. Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason. Epic poetry undertakes to teach the most important truth by the most pleasing precepts, and therefore relates some great event in the most affecting manner. History must supply the rudiments of narration, which he must improve and exalt by a nobler art, must animate by dramatic energy, and diversify by retrospection and anticipation; morality must teach him the exact bounds and different shades of vice and virtue; from policy and the practice of life, he has to learn the discriminations of character, and the tendency of the passions, either single or combined; and physiology must supply him with illustrations and images. To put these materials to a poetical use, is required an imagination capable of painting nature and realizing fiction. Nor is he yet a poet till he has attained the whole extension of his language, distinguished all the delica cies of phrase, and all the colours of words, and learned to adjust their different sounds to all the varieties of metrical modulation.

If we could now suppose Mr. Eustaphieve to have been altogether ignorant of the necessity of these accomplishments, we would the

more easily forgive him for the offence of which we have com. plained. We had, indeed, framed this excuse for him in our own minds, and were influenced by it, until, after turning over the leaves of his poem, we reached the end, and found there what he styles the author's Apology'-a grotesque sort of postliminious preface. In this 'Apology, which, by the by, is far from being apologetical in its spirit, he tells us, that an epic poem is no ordinary undertaking;' and that he contemplates, in connexion with his Demetreid,' a critical essay upon the epopee.' Hence it is to be inferred that he had examined what the multitude of acute and erudite critics, ancient and modern, have written on the same subjcct, and conceived himself to be gifted and instructed, nearly, at least, in the extent and plenitude upon which they all agree as indispensable for success. We know of but one salvo for his modesty the supposition that he has a new theory to propound, showing, among other new things, that their estimate is altogether gratuitous; and, in truth, unless he have made some very remarkable discoveries, we would beg leave to protest solemnly against his imposing upon this public an essay about matters which have been treated as often, and with as much labour, learning, and ingenuity, as any other topics of literature whatever. We have reason to be alarmed, not only by the triteness of the subjects, but by the complexion of his Apology,' as a specimen of his capacity for composition in English prose. A single phrase will testify how much this gentleman has yet to learn on the score of sense, idiom, and gramNeither can the part thus presented, be it done so well as to excite interest and sympathy, or so ill as to provoke the opposite feelings, become the means of prejudicing the whole: it being evident, that, in the former case, the general desire to obtain the remainder would rather increase than diminish; and in the latter the prospect could not be worse, while the benefit of the experiment would still be felt, so far at least as to prevent much useless waste of health and time, and much additional mortification.'

mar.

The most disconsolate augury, however, arises from the design of the poem itself, and from its execution, as far as this is shown in the Introduction now published. We say introduction, though speaking of a volume containing more than six thousand measured lines; for such does the author, in his Apology,' request it may be viewed. He has only imparted sufficient impulse to the subject'' yet to be developed in its full extent and preconceived magnitude!' Hitherto all is fiction,' save the names of the two principal personages; the rest is to be history expressly contradistinguished from the world of imagination, and this he calls a natural division! We admit that he has here struck into a new path, but we still dread the impending essay; the more, as we must believe that his speculations will be conformable to his practice, and his illustrations culled from his own Demetrius.' It is really too much to play Aristotle and Homer at the same time.

With respect to the execution of the portion in our hands, we must say, generally, that it is wanting in every particular which the

critics have commended as excellent in the great models of this department of poetry. It sins against their best precepts, and possesses none of the merits which they would exact as an atonement. The fable has no attraction in itself, and is most clumsily managed. What it has of incident is neither ingenious nor engaging, and only serves to betray the sterility of an invention which required to be severely tortured to yield enough for the mere sustenance of the slender plot. All is fiction, we are told, except the names of the two principal personages; and for the public, to whom Mr. Eustaphieve has presented his work, and in whose language it is written, those names, as we have before intimated, have not the slightest degree of interest. They are utterly unknown to the great majority of English readers, and must be perfectly indifferent to such of us even as have explored the Russian annals of the 14th century. The opinion of Addison, on a point like this, may be of no weight with Mr. Eustaphieve, but it is worth quoting for our readers. 'There is a circumstance in the principal actors of the Iliad and Æneid, which gives a peculiar beauty to those poems, and was therefore contrived with very great judgment; I mean the authors having chosen for their heroes persons who are so nearly related to the people for whom they wrote. Achilles was a Greek, &c. And it is plain, that each of those poems has lost a great advantage among those readers to whom their heroes are as strangers, or indifferent persons. Milton's poem is admirable in this respect, as his principal actors are not only our progenitors, but our representatives,' &c.

Why Mr. Eustaphieve having, as was natural, taken his subject from the story of his own country, did not employ his native tongue, is not explained in his Apology. Whoever succeeds in penetrating a few lines into his book, will perceive that his hopes, as an author, rest at home-in Cæsare tantum; and this observation gives occasion for the conjecture, that he aimed at producing a greater effect there, by a tour de force, a miracle of literary prowess. The work is most humbly and respectfully' inscribed to the present empress of all the Russias, and both her majesty and the imperial master are invoked and celebrated at the outset, through four or five most ardent and suppliant pages.* Alexander is first addressed.

6

Præsenti tibi maturos largimur honores

He is the star of the north,' with a radiance mild, yet pure;' he is the first in eminence,' though 'second in name' to him of Persia: and is thus lowly and loyally apostrophized

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Illustrious prince, whose blood from Peter's veins,

A source immortal, flows; vouchsafe to hear

My feeble song, and with complacence look,' &c.

*We are not ignorant that the poet may plead for this hallelujaying, the high authority of La Fontaine.

On ne peut trop louer trois sortes de personnes

Les dieux, sa maitresse, et son roi.

Malherbe le disoit; J'y souscris quant à moi;
Ce sont maximes toujours bonnes.
La louange chatouille et gagne les esprits,' &c.

O that I could approach thee undisguised,
And sing thy deeds confessed! Impossible!
It is the future poct's happy lot:

Yet happier far were mine, if thou, perchance,
Approve my humble lay,—delightful hope!'

Then the consul turns to the 'sweet partner of Alexander's scepter'd toil,' and hails her thus-most musically

Noble christian! Pious queen!

Kind friend! Illustrious female! Spotless wife!' &c.

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She is told, soon after, of the zone that girds her 'station's dignity;' of her wearing angel woman's genuine heart;' of her bringing

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For some particular purpose, the word protection is distinguished by a capital, as we have given it. The poet proceeds 'Thou whom great ease to serve

Is sole complaint of thy attending train,' &c.
'Bestow thy gracious, all-benignant look
On this, the humble poet's humble mite,

With boldness sprung from overflowing heart
Laid at thy feet! Reject not, I beseech,

This faint attempt, alas! how faint,' &c.

An aspiration follows, that he could dwell at the summer residence of the young empress, where ocean's surly god subdued' watches, duteous, at her couch of rest;' and where Venus and Pallas' unite their mutual charms' to wait on her!

Oh! were it mine

To mingle in the sacred group, and drink
Pure inspiration from the air so breath'd,

Then might my efforts-But-Hence, wayward wish!
No clime can quench the grateful poet's fire,

No distance cool his warm regard.'

There is something a little mysterious in this, as well as in the suggestion to the emperor about approaching his person. But we do not pry into secrets. The empress is summoned to contemplate the author, sustained by 'one great glowing thought,' and pouring forth his grateful song' in the midst of a storm in the North sea; 'Heedless the poet stands! warm with the theme, The glorious theme, rude winter's icy touch He feels not, spurns the storm, and scarcely deigns To brush away the frothy dust that hangs

In quivering clusters from his humid locks,' &c.

** * *

6 Wilt thou accept

The homage, stamp'd so deep with seal of truth!

Wilt thou, as lately, on his lighter task,

On this his greater labour smile! A doubt

Would wrong thy generous soul. Thou wilt ****

Enough!

Amen! say we. Her majesty cannot, we think, fail to be affected by so romantic a situation, and so chivalrous a devotion: But, if she be familiar with our more ancient poetry, she will, when she

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