The verfes in which our author expatiates on the doubtful origin of his royal manfion, certainly do him no great honour:

Not to look back fo far to whom this ifle,
Owes the first glory of fo brave a pile;
Whether to Cæfar, Albanact, or Brute,
The British Arthur, or the Danish C'nute;
(Though this of old, no less contest did move,
Than when for Homer's birth feven cities
ftrove ;)

(Like him in birth thou should'st be like in
fame,

As thine his fate, if mine had been his flame ;)
But whofoe'er it was, Nature defign'd

For a brave place, and then as brave a mind.

A Defcriptive poem ought, of all poems, to be easily intelligible. Cooper's-Hill is fo obfcure, that repeated perufals are neceffary to discover its meaning; which when discovered, is often found to be abfurd. The Poet, from mentioning Windfor, takes occafion to mention Edward the third. Perhaps there cannot be any where found a

more

more striking instance of that species of nonfenfe, ludicrously ftyled Hibernicifm, than we meet with here. Our author afferts, that in cafe Edward had poffeffed the gift of prefcience, he could have prevented both the past and the future, and directed the conduct of his ancestors, and of pofterity. But his own words fhall be quoted, firft in a profe verfion, and then as they stand in his rhyming couplets. He says, that if destiny ⚫ had given Edward skill to know her will, that then all the blood which ⚫ himself, and his grandfather shed, and all that these fifter nations bled fince, had been unfpilt; and that he had known, that all which be fpilt had • been his own :'

Had thy great destiny but given thee skill
To know, as well as power to act, her will,
That from those kings who then thy captives

were,

In after times should spring a royal pair;
Who should poffess all that thy mighty power,
Or thy defires more mighty, did devour;
To whom their better fate referves whate'er
The victor hopes for, or the vanquish'd fear;

That

That blood which thou and thy great grand-
fire fhed,

And all that since these sister-nations bled,
Had been unfpilt, and happy Edward known,
That all the blood he fpilt had been his own.

The writer, who quits his subject for heterogeneous, or unnatural digreffion, discovers no great judgment. As Cooper's-Hill affords a fight of Windfor, there could be no impropriety in paying Windfor fome attention; to proceed to the history of a king who was born there, was rather too wide a deviation ; but to defcant on that king's institution of an order of knighthood,* must be an unpardonable eccentricity. Our author on this occafion talks of a perfonage whom Edward chofe for a patron, and who was a foldier and a martyr; this we guess to be the English tutelar Saint George. He next speaks of another, of whom Edward feemed to foretell and prophesy, who joined an azure round to

* The Garter.

his realms: the party meant by this description, is not fo eafily ascertained. Lastly, he gives us a wonderful fubject of contemplation, an endless bound with liquid arms, which extend to the world's extremeft ends:

When he that patron chose in whom are join'd,
Soldier and martyr, and his arms confin'd
Within the azure circle, he did feem

But to foretell and prophesy of him,

Who to his realms that azure round hath join'd,
Which nature for their bound at first design'd;
That bound which to the world's extremeft ends,
Endlefs itself, its liquid arms extends.

In a Descriptive Poem, the proper names of places are absolutely necessary, for the fake of perfpicuity; and if judiciously chofen and employed, they always afford pleasure. Denham feems to have been greatly averfe to the use of them. The early editions of his poem inform us in a note, that the following lines relate to Chertfy-Abbey, otherwise it would be rather difficult to guess their

intended

intended application. Perhaps it is not poffible for any thing that bears the name of verses, to be more profaic than these :

My fixed thoughts my wandering eye betrays,
Viewing a neighbouring hill, whose top fo late
A chapel crown'd, 'till in the common fate
The adjoining Abbey fell, (may no fuch storm
Fall on our time, where ruin muft reform!)

Pope's definition of poetry, when he misnamed it wit, is probably at once the most concise and most just ever given :

True wit is nature to advantage dreft,

What oft was thought, but ne'er fo well expreft.

Denham, and his cotemporaries, on the contrary, feem to have imagined all merit to confift in thinking differently from others, and in collecting uncommon, or remote and fanciful refemblances. This merit, however, muft fuffer fome degradation, when it is confidered as often actually in poffeffion of the lowest vulgar, of the plough-boy, the