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    POETRY.

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    Untitled Article

    < 544 )

    Untitled Article

    X 3 SAY ON MODERN LATIST POETRY : WITH TRANSLATIONS FROM COWPEIi . Sep . 3 , 1811 .

    Of persons who relish the beauties of the Roman poets , none , it may be presumed , are wholly indifferent to the successful produc . tions of the moderns in the metres of the same language . There are men , I am aware , of no mean reputation for knowledge and abilities , who frown upon these attempts , and consider them as laborious

    trifling . Not being convinced by their arguments , I cannot ac . qui ' sce in their decision-It will surely 0 e acknowledged that whatever is of importance to be done at all , is o £ importance to be done correctly . Now the habit of writing , Latin verses , in our places of education , facilitates and

    improves the pupil's acquaintance with the laws of prosody and with the treasures and ornaments of poetical expression : in other words , its tendency and usual effeci are to render his knowledge of the Roman tongue more accurate and extensive . Assuredly , therefore , his happy effor » , o . f the kin < L should be looked upon as something more than nugoe ctun&r& . If it be a just recommendation of classical studies , as- it is of most other studies , that they quicken our

    powers , form the taste and assist the judgment , this advantage will , of course , be proportioned to th e * care and exactness with which they are pursued . In maturer life Latin versification will selcloni or ever be under . taken except as a relaxation from more serious employments . Tfictf works of taste , the perusal and the imitation of whicli arc fitly

    prescribed as the exercises of the boy , can only be the amusement t < t the man . At the season when a person ot liberal education unbends from graver avocations , it is no small and no irrational pleasure which he will receive from the Latin poetry of a Buchanan , a Jortin , a Bourne and a Cowper ; not to mention , at present , that of otbti authors , of equal or it may be supeviour merit The principal sources of this gratification , will , I believe , be found in the success with which a signal difficulty is observed to be overcome - in the agreeable trains of tfiought which the Latin poetry oi a

    scholar excites particularly wilh regat < lto the objects ancVthescen ^ of our early studies , and , not least of all , in jj perception of the conciseness and comprehension with w | uch thp Roman language am versification can express thoughts-that are of necessity exhibited wi

    d-iffuseness in vernacular compositions . t " . ... Between the versifier and the poet there will always be a msi i distinction . The remark bolds good of those who write in Latin a ^ ^ those who write in English numbers . It is an error to imagine ^ the employment is entirely mechanical . Whatever may be eftec by discipline and habit , nothing which is excellent can here be a complished without a high degree of taste and genius *

    Poetry.

    POETRY .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1811, page 544, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2420/page/32/