The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-17 00:00:00

(THIS DAY.)

BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH,
LANSDOWNE TRIAL STAKES.

Lamartine..

Three ran.

TO UN ON POETRY.

LECTURE TER FOURTH,
Another lecture was delivered by Professor Aytoun yes-
terday, it being the fourth of his series of six on Poetry and
Dramatic Literature. Although his auditors appear to us
always singularly phlegmatic, we must acknowledge, at
the same time, that they are about the most attentive
listeners we have ever seen assembled together. If
they are exceedingly charry of their applause, they at
any rate seem to hang breathlessly upon every syllable
that falls from the lips of the lecturer. It is observable
that in the progress of this attractive course of disserta-
tions there is at least the advantage of variety both in
subject and in treatment. The first, while in some
respects it might be somewhat confused; and even
somewhat superficial, was also comprehensive, and alto-
gether agreeably introductory. The second, although,
to our humble thinking, heretical in its contempt for the
very first article of belief in the Poetic Creed as laid
down in "Don Juan," viz. :
,

" Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope !"

was, notwithstanding this, rendered peculiarly delighk
ful to us by the diversity, the aptness, and the profusion
of the ingenious similes scattered through it by way of
elegant and appropriate illustration—as where the in-
fluence of the Wasp of Twickenham was likened to the
delicate but refrigerating frostwork which, on the ad-
vance of a vernal thaw, gives place to the prolific beau-
ties of vegetation. The third, moreover, in spite of its
being, to our mind, disfigured, and in a manner made
unwieldy, by the rugged products of the earlier writers
of Scotland, was invested with that ever-potent charm
which is inseparable from the contemplation of Ballad
Literature. Yesterday's, we have observed, was
the fourth lecture, and it was, in all respects,
strikingly different from its predecessors. Oddly
enough, its principal characteristic was drollery, though
the materials of which it treated were conspicuous in the
majority of instances rather by reason of their gran-
deur and magnificence. The Professor, for example, di-
rected especial attention in this discourse to the exalting
and purifying influence exercised by the Age of Chivalry
upon Midimval Poetry, and also, generally speaking,
upon. Midimval Literature. We must acknowledge our-
selves to have experienced some surprise
,when we heard
the fervent eulogist of Chivalry almost in the same breath
with which he pronounced a panegyric on its influence,
utter a studied sentence depreciative of the sway exer-
cised over the intellect by Enthusiasm ! Bertrand de
Born was, of course, duly celebrated by the lecturer—
when he took occasion to make a passing allusion
to the romantic band of the Troubadours. Re-
ference was subsequently made to the impas-
sioned and inspiriting Chansons de Geste, chaunted,
or declaimed, by the Trouvbres. And while exception
was taken with regard to the opinions propounded on
those same Chansons de Geste by M. Paulin Paris, yet
greater exception was taken afterwards to the episodical
manner in which Ariosto frittered away, so to speak, the
sublime and gorgeous materials selected by him for the
construction of his great poem—materials such as those
afforded by the memory of the Paladins and the tradi-
tions of Charlemagne. Out of those materials, according
to ProfessorAytoun's graceful imagery, Ariosto built up
bowers and grottoes rather than a temple or a palace.
So that, the lecturer argued, we are scarcely con-
soled by the infinite ingenuity displayed through-
out the cantoes of the " Orlando Furioso" for the
misapplication of a subject so wonderfully grand and
resplendent the contest, remember, being between
Asiatic Paganism on the one hand, and on the
other the princes of Christendom assembled round
the banners of Charlemagne—the battle-field the
Holy Land, and the stake the interests of Chris-
tianity! A single example of the style in which
this majestic theme was treated by some of the Italian
poets, was recited during the course of the lecture from
Sostegno di,Zenabi, the incident recounted in the quo-
tation being " The Death of the Marquis Oliver at
Roncesvalles." Immediately afterwards our attention
was recalled homewards by allusion to the obvious
effect these poems relating to the Paladins had on the
earlier British writers, and even—notwithstanding his
pure and indisputable originality—upon the father of
English verse—the wise and the merry old Geoffrey
Chaucer. It was about this part of his discourse that
Professor Aytoun—while referring with much humorous
sarcasm to the metrical attempts of various royal poet-
asters, not forgetting the verses " made" by Elizabeth,
and the drivelling rhythm of her successor, the modern
Solomon—offered an exquisite and deserved tribute of
praise to the poetic genius displayed by King James I.
of Scotland. Passing over a broad but comparatively
barren interval, the lecturer carried us onward from the
time of Chaucer to the time of Shakspere. Perhaps
we should rather say—from the circumstance of the dra-
matic portion of the subject being reserved for the next
(the fifth) lecture—the time of Spenser, and Sydney, and
Marlow, and Raleigh (horribly pronounced Raw-leigh),
the age of Bacon and Burleigh, the glorious epoch known
as the Elizabethan Period in our literature. Here
it was that the delicious merits and the tantalising
demerits of the " Faery Queen " were particularised by
the Professor, his analysis of the poem being interspersed
by a few timely quotations. Among these illustrative
passages, the loveliest was that descriptive of the house
of Sleep and the couch of Morpheus--a passage in which
Spenser always appears to us while borrowing his me-
taphor from Virgil to have altered it most unaccount-
ably and blunderingly. He has changed the gate of
translucent or diaphonous horn into one of opaque and
impenetrable silver—forgetting the subtle significance of
that lovely thought in the " ./Eneid" :
" Stint geminm Somni portze : quarum altera fcrtur
Cornea, quct veris facilis datur exitus Umbris :
Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephant° ;
Sed falsa ad ccelum mittunt insomnia Manes."
Professor Aytoun cherishes a wholesome horror of the
allegorical—in anouncing which he exposed to no unde-
served ridicule the "Purple Island" of Phineas Fletcher
—a poem in which the bard-anatomist has certainly
viewed man (if any one ever did) as a veritable micro-
cosm. Equally profound is the lecturer's dislike for the
hypberbolical. Fol• the purpose of proving how utterly
nauseous any lengthened hyperbole becomes on perusal,
he declaimed, with admirable, or rather abominable,
success, a passage from Michael Drayton, in which David
the Royal Prophet is minutely depicted at the time-when
he was a stripling shepherd. Towards the close of his lec-
ture yesterday, Professor Aytoun recited a magnificent
translation (we presume his own) from Ovid's famous ac-
count of the Metamorphosis of Lycaon. From the first verse
to the last this translation was, we repeat, really magni-
ficent. The programme of the entire lecture is thus
given in the printed syllabus :
"Influence of the Age of Chivalry on Mediaeval
Literature and Poetry, and on European Thought
—Bertrand de Born and the Troubadours The
Trouv6res, and their Chansons de Geste—M. Paulin
Paris on these early French Poems—Their adoption
as Materials by the Italian Narrative Poets—The
Traditions of Charlemagne and the Paladins—Gran-
deur of this subject—Specimen : The Death of the
Marquis Oliver at Roncesvalles, from Sostegno di Zinabi
—Effect of these Poems on early British Writers—
Chaucer—james.l. of Scotland—The Elizabethan Period
—lnfluences of External Causes of Excitement on Intel-
lectual Development—the Recovery of the Works of
The F a
Tendency—
Fletchere ry Qu ee
s `Purple
criticised,A n t ui t
le Island —Euphuism, and its Influ-
ence on subsequent Poetry—Taste of that Period."
The attendance at the fourth lecture was altogether
—wiAthriSstpec andim Specimens—The Allegoricalr—
cessors.
as numerous and as fashionable as at any of its prede-