“Ut altus Olympi Vertex, qui spatio ventos hiemesque relinquit, Perpetuum nullâ temeratus nube serenum Celsior exsurgit pluviis, auditque ruentes Sub pedibus nimbos, et rauca tonitrua calcat;”
which Goldsmith, by the way, has borrowed and paraphrased in the _Deserted Village_, together with its sublime application:
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles round its head.
Space does not serve to follow Mr. Palgrave through his chapters on Italian, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon poetry, in all of which his omissions are as remarkable as his citations; so we must content ourselves with making a few remarks on his treatment of the English poets. It is pleasing to see that, guided by Gray, he has done justice to Lydgate, but he has not noticed the distinguishing peculiarity of this poet in his description, his extraordinary sensitive appreciation of colour.
Among the Scotch poets of the fifteenth century a prominent place should have been given to Henryson who is not even mentioned. Mr. Palgrave hurries over the Elizabethan poets with too much expedition, and the poets of the eighteenth century fare even worse. Great injustice is done to Thomson. Why did not Mr. Palgrave, instead of citing what he calls Thomson’s “cold” tropical landscape, for the purpose of contrasting it unfavourably with Tennyson’s picture in _Enoch Arden_, give us instead the Summer morning--
“At first faint gleaming in the dappled East ... Young day pours in apace, And opens all the lawny prospect wide, The dripping rock, the mountain’s misty tops Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn, Blue through the dusk the smoking currents shine,”
“The clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer sky”;
or the rainbow in the _Lines to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton_? Dyer may be somewhat prosaic, but he is not a poet to be despatched in a treatise on descriptive poetry, without citation, in a few contemptuous lines: how vivid is his picture of a calm in the tropics!--
“The dewy feather, on the cordage hung, Moves not; the flat sea shines, like yellow gold Fused in the fire”;
or the charming landscape in _Grongar Hill_ with such touches as these: