By this anxiety in
tracing its pedigree, the reader is led to exaggerate the pretensions of
the little poem; these are inconsiderable: and there is a conspicuous
fault, which it is worth while noticing, because it is one peculiarly
besetting those who write modern verses with the help of a gradus, viz.
that the Pentameter is often a mere reverberation of the preceding
Hexameter. Thus, for instance--
'Parthenios inter saltus non amplius erro,
Non repeto Dryadum pascua laeta choris;'
and so of others, where the second line is but a variation of the first.
Even Ovid, with all his fertility, and partly in consequence of his
fertility, too often commits this fault. Where indeed the thought is
effectually varied, so that the second line acts as a musical _minor_,
succeeding to the _major_, in the first, there may happen to arise a
peculiar beauty. But I speak of the ordinary case, where the second is
merely the rebound of the first, presenting the same thought in a diluted
form. This is the commonest resource of feeble thinking, and is also a
standing temptation or snare for feeble thinking. Lord Wellesley, however,
is not answerable for these faults in the original, which indeed he
notices slightly as 'repetitions;' and his own Greek version is spirited
and good. There, are, however, some mistakes. The second line is
altogether faulty;
[Greek: _Choria Mainaliph pant erateina theph
Achnumenos leipon_]
does not express the sense intended.
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