First the fam'd authors of his ancient name, Cole where dark streams his flowery islands And chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave; The Lee indeed is evidently defigned for a person, and the Mole and Darent may also be viewed in the same light : The gulphy Lee his fedgy treffes rears, The principal figure, our attention to whom has been rather interrupted by the description of his attendants, now appears in full view again : * The river Loddon, which in the former part of the Poem, is made feminine, is here one of the fea-born brothers. Such trivial flips are not eafily avoided in works of length. High in the midft, upon his urn reclin❜d, roar, And the hush'd waves glide filent to the shore. The speech of Thames, long as it is, is poetical, animated, and moftly correct; it has many beauties, and no faults deferving notice. Pope feems in fome measure to have foreseen the prevalence of that liberal fpirit of enterprize, which has produced our late difcoveries in the remotest regions of the globe: Thy trees, fair Windfor, now fhall leave And half thy forests rush into thy floods, pole; Or under fouthern skies exalt their fails, Led by new ftars, and borne by spicy gales! Dr. Dr. Warton has mentioned, with just approbation, the following beautiful invocation of peace: O ftretch thy wings, fair Peace! from shore Till conqueft cease, and flavery be no more; The conclufion of the Poem does not seem to be the most happily managed. Father Thames is difmiffed, without any notice of his difmiffion; the Poet feems to take up the matter in his own person, as if he himself had been speaking, and brings in another fuperfluous unmeaning compliment to his friend Granville, and another unneceffary mention of the green forests and flowery plains : Here cease thy flight, nor with unhallow'd lays, recite, And bring the scenes of opening fate to light; My My humble mufe in unambitious strains, That Pope, in his advanced age, had no very high opinion of Defcriptive Poetry, is generally understood; and it has been thought that he had really no very powerful talents for it. Some of the foregoing quotations however fufficiently evince, that he could have excelled as much in Description, as in Fiction or Satire. ESSAY ESSAY IV. On DYER'S GRONGAR HILL. GR RONGAR-HILL is a Defcriptive Poem, of very confiderable merit, fpirited and pleafing. Few poetical pieces have reprefented an extenfive and beautiful prospect in so agreeable a manner. But it is not without its imperfections; there is a redundance of thought in fome inftances, and a careleffness of language in others. The verfification, like that of Milton's L' Allegro and Il Penforofo, is an irregular mixture of iambick and trochaick lines: a circum |