"Cedite Romani Scriptores, cedite Græci."
Nothing can be more consonant to the advice of Horace and Aristotle, than the conduct of our author throughout this Poem. The action is one, entire and great event, being the procreation of a child on the wife of a Saxon Drummer. The Poem opens with a most laboured and masterly description of a storm. ROLLO's state of mind in this arduous situation is finely painted:
Now ROLLO storms more loudly than the wind, Now doubts and black despair perplex his mind; Hopeless to see his vessel safely harbour'd, He hardly knows his starboard for his larboard!
That a hero in distress should not know his right hand from his left, is most natural and affecting; in other hands, indeed, it would not have appeared sufficiently poetical, but the technical expressions of our author convey the idea in all the blaze of metaphor. The storm at length subsides, and ROLLO is safely landed on the coast of Sussex. His first exploit, like that of Æneas, is deer-stealing. He then sets out in the disguise of a Sussex Smuggler, to obtain intelligence of the country and its inhabitants:
Wrapt in a close great-coat, he plods along; A seeming Smuggler, to deceive the throng.
This expedient of the Smuggler's Great-coat, we must acknowledge, is not quite so Epic, as the veil of clouds, with which Minerva in the Odyssey, and Venus, in the Æneid, surround their respective heroes. It is, however, infinitely more natural, and gains in propriety, what it loses in sublimity. Thus disguised, our adventurer arrives at the Country-house of Dame SHIPTON, a lady of exquisite beauty, and first Concubine to the Usurper HAROLD. Her likeness (as we all know) is still preserved at the wax-work in Fleet-Street. To this lady ROLLO discovers himself, and is received by her in the most hospitable manner. At supper, he relates to her, with great modesty, his former actions, and his design of conquering England; in which (charmed with the grace with which he eats and tells stories) she promises to assist him, and they set off together for London. In the third book Dame SHIPTON, or, as the author styles her, SHIPTONIA, proposes a party to the puppet-show; on the walk they are surprised by a shower, and retire under Temple-bar, where Shiptonia forgets her fidelity to Harold. We are sorry to observe, that this incident is not sufficiently poetical; nor does Shiptonia part with her chastity in so solemn a manner as Dido in the Æneid. In the opening of the fourth book, likewise, we think our author inferior to Virgil, whom he exactly copies, and in some places translates; he begins in this manner: