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By Root 16569 0

up — as, for example, when he destroys the grove about the temple of Artemis, at Delos. Here he usurps the proper allegorical attribute of Rhexergon, (the second of the seven giants named) who is the Breaker-down, typifying the Revolutionary Principle. Autarces, the third, represents the Mob, or, more strictly, Waywardness — Capricious Action. Harpax, the fourth, serves for Rapine — Briastor, the fifth, for Brute Force — Encolyon, the sixth, the “Chainer of the Wheel,” for Conservatism — and Akinetos, the seventh, and most elaborated, for Apathy. He is termed “The Great Unmoved,” and in his mouth is put all the “worldly wisdom,” or selfishness, of the tale. The philosophy of Akinetos is, that no merely human exertion has any appreciable effect upon the Movement; and it is amusing to perceive how this great Truth (for most sincerely do we hold it to be such) speaks out from the real heart of the poet, through his Akinetos, in spite of all endeavor to overthrow it by the example of the brighter fate of Orion. The death of Akinetos is a singularly forcible and poetic conception, and will serve to show how the giants are made to perish, generally, during the story, in agreement with their allegorical ­natures. The “Great Unmoved” quietly seats himself in a cave after the death of all his brethren, except Orion.

Thus Akinetos sat from day to day,

Absorbed in indolent sublimity,

Reviewing thoughts and knowledge o’er and o’er;

And now he spake, now sang unto himself,

Now sank to brooding silence. From above,

While passing, Time the rock touch’d, and it oozed

Petrific drops — gently at first and slow.

Reclining lonely in his fixed repose,

The Great Unmoved unconsciously became

Attached to that he pressed; and soon a part

Of the rock. There clung th’ excrescence, till strong hands,

Descended from Orion, made large roads,

And built steep walls, squaring down rocks for use.

The italicized conclusion of this fine passage affords an instance, however, of a very blameable concision, too much affected throughout the poem.

In the deaths of Autarces, Harpax, and Encolyon, we recognize the same exceeding vigor of conception. These giants conspire against Orion, who seeks the aid of Artemis, who, in her turn, seeks the assistance of Phoibos (Phœbus.) The conspirators are in a cave, with Orion.

Now Phoibos thro’ the cave

Sent a broad ray! and lo! the solar beam

Filled the great cave with radiance equable

And not a cranny held one speck of shade.

A moony halo round Orion came,

As of some pure protecting influence,

While with intense light glared the walls and roof,

The heat increasing. The three giants stood

With glazing eyes, fixed. Terribly the light

Beat on the dazzled stone, and the cave hummed

With reddening heat, till the red hair and beard

Of Harpax showed no difference from the rest,

Which once were iron-black. The sullen walls

Then smouldered down to steady oven heat,

Like that with care attain’d when bread has ceased

Its steaming and displays an angry tan.

The appalled faces of the giants showed

Full consciousness of their immediate doom.

And soon the cave a potter’s furnace glow’d

Or kiln for largest bricks, and thus remained

The while Orion, in his halo clasped

By some invisible power, beheld the clay

Of these his early friends change. Life was gone.

Now sank the heat — the cave-walls lost their glare,

The red lights faded, and the halo pale

Around him, into chilly air expanded. ­

There stood the three great images, in hue

Of chalky white and red, like those strange shapes

In Egypt’s ancient tombs; but presently

Each visage and each form with cracks and flaws

Was seamed, and the lost countenance brake up,

As, with brief toppling, forward prone they fell.

The deaths of Rhexergon and Biastor seem to discard (and this we regret not) the allegorical meaning altogether, but are related with even more exquisite richness and delicacy of imagination, than even those of the other giants. Upon this occasion it is the jealousy of Artemis which destroys.

—— But with the eve Fatigue o’ercame the