Prev | Current Page 12 | Next

Wynne, Ellis, 1671-1734

"The Visions of the Sleeping Bard"

The introduction to each Vision is evidently written with
elaborate care, and exquisitely polished--"ne quid possit per leve
morari," and scene follows scene, painted in words which present them
most vividly before one's eyes, whilst the force and liveliness of his
diction sustain unflagging interest throughout. The reader is carried
onward as much by the rhythmic flow of language and the perfect balance
of sentences, as by the vivacity of the narrative and by the reality with
which Ellis Wynne invests his adventures and the characters he depicts.
The terrible situations in which we find the Bard, as the drama unfolds,
betoken not only a powerful imagination, but also an intensity of feeling
which enabled him to realise the conceptions of such imagination. We
follow the Bard and his heavenly guide through all their perils with
breathless attention; the demons and the damned he so clothes with flesh
and blood that our hatred or our sympathy is instantly stirred; his World
is palpitating with life, his Hell, with its gloom and glare, is an
awful, haunting dream. But besides being the possessor of a vivid
imagination, Ellis Wynne was endowed with a capacity for transmitting his
own experience in a picturesque and life-like manner.


Pages:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25