Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1818-07-22
ALEX ANDRIA:
WEDNESDAY MORNING, JULY 90.
". cANTo OF cHILDE HAROLD.
Continued

I CTltlCs are ulsiiedseu WIN NO SeNJ.>>N'
some even censure his language as obscure,
and his versi6cation as careless, he YET
commands their admiration by an origIna-
lily of which genius Of the highest order
can alone be the source by the vigorous,
searching penetration, and Distinguishing
faculty which he brings to the inspection OF
even the most common and trivial objects,
and which enables him to analyze their
! properties, to see them at once IN all their
relations, and to detect what had escaped
the observation Of all former spectators.-.
Novelty is always delightful-and by H.
whether he ELECTS it from things old and
familiar, or produces ii by the introduction
! to our view of scenes before unimagined or
unknown, the works Of this author are al
ways recommended. " OF the brilliant
skies and variegated landscapes OF Greece,
! (says a great critic every one has formed
! 10 himself a general notion, from having
contemplated them through the hazy at
mosphere of some prose narration; but IN
/ Lord Byron's poetry, every image is dis
; tnct and glowing, as if it were Illuminated
by its native sunshine and in the figures
which people the landscape, we. behold
noi only the general form and costume, but
the countenance and the attitude, and the
play of features and of gesture accompa-
nying, and indicating the sudden impulses
of momen,ary feelings The magic of CO.
loring by which this is effected, is perhaps
the most striking evidence Of this poets ia
lent" In the former cantos Of this story Of
Childe Harold, which has been well called
a metrical itinerary, the matchless exertion
of genius here alluded 10, has been uni
fornhy displayed in the landscapes Of Por-
tugal, Spain, Epirus, Acarnania, Greece,
&c. and in the figures of the people which
inhabit them; and with no fainter or less
wonderful magic of coloring appear in the
landscapes of Italy, and in the figures of
those who peopled that delightful country,
and particularly Rome and Venice, not on
ly in remote antiquity, but in modern times.
What grand conception of Italy is con-
veyed by the following lines!-
"But my soul wanders; demand it back
To mediate amongst decay, and stand
/ A ruin amidst ruins; there TO track
Fallen states and buried greatness, DER
Which zcas the mightiest in its old command
! And is the loyeliest, and must ever be
The master mould OF natures heavenly
hand,
Wherein we cast the heroic and the free.
The beautiful, The brave, the lords OF earth
and sea.
s:The commonwealth Of kings, the men OF
Rome.
And even since, and now, fair italy!
Tho. art the garden Of the world, the home
OF all art Yields, and nature can decree:
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee!
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste
More itch than other chimes fertility;
Thy wreck glory, and thy ruin graced
; With an immaculate charm which cannot
be defaced."
A delicious description follows, of an
evening on the banks of the Brenta, in
which the setting sun divides the sky with
! the rising neon, and
ga sea
OF glory streams along the Alpine height
Of blue Friuls mountains :"
and concludes with an exquisitely> beauti-
full comparison of the departure Of day TO
the colors of dying dolphin:
"Partihg day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each papg i'm
bues
With new color as it gasps away,
The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone-and
all is gray"
From this our author turns to the Italian
poets: first to Petrarch, whose mansion
and sepulchre at the mountain village of
.lroua, draw forth frum the poet some just
reflections upon solitude from which he
bursts into a strain of indignant reprobation
Of Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara, whose ty-
ranny destroyed the inimitable poet Iasso.'
{" If from society we learn TO live,
IT'S solitude should teach MS how to die:
II hath no fatteTers: vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone--man with his'God
! must strive;
"Or il may be. with demons, who impair
The strength of better thoughts, and seek
theirpr
melancholy bosoms, such as were
OF moody texture from their earliest day,
And lov'd to dwell in darkness and dismay,