And ever in the intermediate spaces The lofty front two equal columns bear. That metal show which is most rich and rare, 4 What more of ornament the fane displays I pass unsung. Who reads, or hears, may guess. Lends them their power, and makes it more or less, 5 Then each one's tale is hearken'd and discuss'd, The zeal, which overleapeth, to call lack, * Demogorgon is a being of whom, I believe, no mention is to be traced higher than the poet Pronapides, who was himself somewhat more ancient than Diodorus Siculus. Theoclontius, an ancient author of uncertain date, whose works had formed a part of the since destroyed collection of Pont of Perugia, incorporated into his prose writings the substance of Pronapides; and Boccace has since, in his turn, transfused a portion of it into his Genealogy. But the original Protocosm of Pronapides was known to John Galen or the Deacon in the fourteenth century. It is a Theogony, referring all the heathen Gods to Demogorgon, instead of Uranus, father of Saturn; in a word, to Hell instead of Heaven. From Demogorgon sprang Eris, Pan, the Three Fates, Heaven, Earth, Python, Erebus, the Giant Night, Orion, &c.; he resided in the Cave of Eternity, and was the Soul of the Earth and the Head of the Triple World. He presides over all manner of evil spirits, fairies and the like, who only disport themselves by his license, "And when the morn arises none are found, For cruel Demogorgon walks the round." Gorgon from of old denoted an object of terror, and Demos means the people; but the rationale of the name is lost, for the present, with the works of Pronapides. Marenus, an eminent Rosiconcian sophist, says that his fraternity "disguised the matter and practice of their art under the name and fable of Demogorgon." Postel, another of them, calls the same supreme lord over the Intelligences of the Elements. Azazel de Causis, c. 10. It is well known that many of the Eastern Magi, and especially the sect of Manichus, held Evil and Matter to be equivalent terms. Demogorgon is nearly equivalent to Arimanes; but it is not a term used by the Persian or other professed Magi, but invented for a disguise (as Maunus intimates) in countries where Magianism was not approved of. From the following verses in the burlesque play of Locrime"Alas! too soon, by Demogorgon's knife The martial Brutus is bereft of life"- we may infer that the poets of the vein of King Cambyses, whom that production is intended to ridicule, made use of his name to signify Death or Hades. Demogorgon, besides that famous and popular appellation, has another name, which nobody knows, because nobody ever dared to mention it; the consequences to arise from such a temerity are as uncertain as those of the "Speaker's naming the honourable member." All that is known with any degree of certainty is, that an Etruscan lady was once acquainted with it, and whispered it softly into the ear of a bull, who instantly went raving mad and died soon after. See the ancient Scholia on Statius, l. 4. v. 516. 6 From time to time, (as year and day demand Hyrcania, or the sea of vermil hue, Nor bridled them a steed, nor vessel mann'd To skim the seas, nor them yoked oxen drew, 7 Some choose to navigate the fields above By mighty demons driven in ships of glass, Others (like him who with St. Peter strove False Magus to his cost, and perish'd) pass 8 With silver some delight, or gold, or rows Of gems, to decorate their elfin coach, Who vanish at the blessed morn's approach, Griffs, hippogriffs, and birds of such queer feather, * Simon Magus (according to the general tradition of the Fathers) opposed himself to the preaching of St. Peter at Rome; and he was desired by Nero to exhibit in his presence some specimen of his theurgic powers. He accordingly raised himself from the ground to a considerable height, declaring that he was about to fly up to heaven. But the arts by which, as St. Luke says, "he long time bewitched the people," failed him at this pass, and he fell down again and broke his legs, of which he shortly after died. Compare the Romance of Merlin, fol. xcii. Jocelin, Acts of St. Patrick, c. 42. The story told by Suetonius, in Nero, c. 12, may perhaps be an inaccurate account of the exploits and fall of Simon. Theophanes mentions, that in the eighth century certain of the Persian Magi endeavoured to work the same miracle with no better success. They were called the Maurophori or Black-robed. Theoph. Chron. 4, p. 361. Con piedi strani e lunghe code e corna. It is an old and established notion that evil natures, however they may disguise themselves and appear as "angels of light," are nevertheless doomed to carry about them a mark of their reprobate condition in the bestial form of at least one foot. The idea may be borrowed from the Capripedes Satyri, or from various considerations, of which the discussion is here unsuitable. Ariosto closes his description of the exquisite charms of Alcina with these lines: "Si vede al fin de la persona augusta Il breve asciutto e retondetta piedi ; Gli angelici sembianti nati in cielo Non si ponno celar sotto alcun velo."-Orl. t. vii. 15. Which Mr. Rose renders "A foot neat, short, and round, beneath is spied;" and intimates, in a note upon the two following lines, that something is there borrowed from the Platonic doctrines concerning spirits. Pulci uses asciutto as the epithet of a horse's hoof, c. xv. st. 107. But I think I perceive another meaning: Alberti interprets asciutto by these words-aride, maegre, decharmé, extenué, and by no commendatory phrase, such as neat; nor do I think a lady's foot can fairly be praised either for its brevity or its rotundity. It may be asked, how could Ariosto seriously ascribe angelic perfections of persons so indelible in their natures as to admit no veil, to a toothless and foul hag, whose apparent beauty (as he says presently after, THE name of the lamented Dr. Drake, though not so widely known as others of far less claim to literary renown, has long been identified with one of which his countrymen are justly proud. Nor has his early association with Mr. Halleck in the production of the best series of political satires that ever appeared on this side of the Atlantic, been the only tie that has linked his name with the rising poetic genius of his country. A number of his pieces have for years been handed about in MS. and copied so extensively as to be disseminated over half the Union; while his stirring lyric, "The American Flag," has long since established such a hold upon popular favour as effectually to embalm the memory of its author. The admirers of Dr. Drake's genius, however, and who that has read "The Culprit Fay" does not rank himself among them, have long been anxious to see some more tangible character given to his reputation, by the collection of his writings and their embodyment in a permanent form. This has at length been accomplished by the publication, of which the proof-sheets are before us. The volume is made up of two long poems (one of which was never finished) and a number of fugitive verses, written, many of them, in early youth, and often thrown st. 73) was a mere optical illusion. If her charms were themselves a veil thrown over deformity, how can we ascribe to them an undisguisable reality? It seems to follow that the last couplet, "Gli angelici," &c. &c., is a severe joke upon the fairy; and while to the ear it says "Angels are ever bright," it insinuates that "devils always show "the cloven foot," or "the club foot." Mr. Retsch, in his designs to illustrate Goethe's Dr. Faustus, has employed the diabolic foot with great ingenuity and effect. "The Culprit Fay," "Leon," and other poems, by the late Joseph Rodman Drake, 1 vol. Dearborn. † Before handing his MSS. to the publisher, the editor politely furnished us with several minor pieces, which had not, to his knowledge, appeared before in print. They will be recognised by the initial D. in our present number. off so carelessly by a hand which wrote without effort, that great inequality will be discovered in a collection, of which a majority of the pieces were meant only for the eye of private friendship. Enough remains, however, to stamp the mind of the author as one of no common order, and to ensure for him an eminent and enduring place among the distinguished names of his country. The poem which commences the volume has long been known to most of our readers, either through MS. copies or from extracts which have, from time to time, found their way into the newspapers. It is now, for the first time, given complete to the public; and we do not hesitate to rank it among the most exquisite productions in the English language. For luxuriance of fancy, for delicacy of expression, for glowing imagery, and for poetic truth it is rivalled by no poem that has appeared on this side of the Atlantic. Our author went to the very well-springs of poetry for his inspiration, and he drew richly from that salient and ever-living fount. He studied nature-studied her not as she appears in books, wherein the pedantry of science dims her lustre, or servile mediocrity, ever content to copy, paints her in our clime in the guise peculiar to others, and with the stale colours that have long since been appropriated to others- he studied her in her own virgin retreats, by the mighty rivers and mossy forests of his own fresh land; amid the splendour of a vegetation rendered various by an ever-changing climate, and beneath skies whose tints alone can rival its autumnal glories. He studied nature, not to find how or wherein she resembled the descriptions that have been given of her in other regions, not to turn the time-worn associations of other countries to the new aspects of his own -to seek for English daisies upon a prairie, or make nightingales sing in a magnolia ; —but to know her for herself alone know her as she lived and breathed in the primal freshness around him. The multiform shapes in which her beauties are displayed in our land-the profusion in which she has lavished her gifts upon this the last work which came from her hand the exhaustless variety of shrubs and flowers that mock the meagre Flora of Europe's less genial clime, were perhaps unknown to him. But none of these graces upon the grander features of nature, however minute, escaped his observation when brought beneath it. He appears to have had that first great attribute of genius, the pervading power which, like the rays of heaven, can at the same time steep the mountain summit in light and touch the humblest floweret at its base with glory; and this it is which imparts a greater degree of nationality to the principal poem of this collection than any which has hitherto been written. Its whole atmosphere is American. It is a fairy tale of our own clime, and its imagery and accessories are applicable to no other beneath the sun. The story is that of an elf who had broken his vestal vow, and dared to love an earthly maid. "He has lain upon her lip of dew, He has sunned him in her eye of blue, He has fanned her check with his wings of air, To the elfin court must haste away- To hear the doom of the culprit fay." The gathering of the goblin crew is thus described: "They come from beds of lichen green, They creep from the mullein's velvet screen; From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, Where they swing in their cobweb hammocks high, And rock about in the evening breeze; Some from the hum'-bird's downy nest They had driven him out by elfin power, And, pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast, Had slumbered there till the charmed hour; Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, With glittering ising-stars inlaid; And some had opened the four-o'clock, And stole within its purple shade. And now they throng the moonlight glade, Their little minim forms arrayed In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!" This must remind the reader of Pope's description of the "denizens of the air" in the Rape of the Lock; nor is it a whit inferior in delicacy of poetic fancy to that beautiful passage commencing "Some to the sun their insect wings unfold, "While every beam new transient colours flings, "Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings." Midnight is the hour of meeting; and whoever, at that witching time of a summer's night, has floated beneath the towering crags of the Hudson, when the moon-beams silvered their grey heads and touched, as with frost-work, the shadowy foliage around their base—or, climbing through thickets of sumach and sassafras, where the glimmer of some mountain rill has guided him upon his tangled path, has paused to listen to the creeping murmur around him, or to watch the fire-fly sparks that shower along the shaggy hill-side, will own the exquisite truth of the following picture: - ""Tis the middle watch of a summer's night The earth is dark, but the heaven's are bright; But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky, A river of light on the welkin blue. |