Now loos'd their ftreams: as when descending

rains

Roll the steep torrents headlong o'er the plains.
The prone creation, who fo long had gaz'd,
Charm'd with her cries, and at her griefs amaz'd,
Began to roar and howl with horrid yell,
Difmal to hear, and terrible to tell;

Nothing but groans and fighs were heard around,
And Echo multiplied each mournful found.

In both thefe funeral poems, when he has yelled out many fyllables of fenfelefs dolour, he difmiffes his reader with fenfeless consolation: from the grave of Paftora rises a light that forms a ftar; and where Amaryllis wept for Amyntas, from every tear sprung up a violet.

But William is his hero, and of William he will fing;

The hovering winds on downy wings fhall wait around,

And catch, and waft to foreign lands, the flying 'found.

It cannot but be proper to fhew what they fhall have to catch and carry:

'Twas now, when flowery lawns the profpect

made,

And flowing brooks beneath a foreft fhade,

A lowing

A lowing heifer, lovelieft of the herd,

Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls prepar'd Their armed heads for fight; by fate of war to

prove

The victor worthy of the fair-one's love.

Unthought prefage of what met next my view;
For foon the fhady scene withdrew.

And now, for woods, and fields, and springing flowers,

Behold a town arife, bulwark'd with walls and lofty towers;

Two rival armies all the plain o'erspread,
Each in battalia rang'd, and shining arms array'd;
With eager eyes beholding both from far,
Namur, the prize and mistress of the war.

The Birth of the Muse is a miferable fiction. One good line it has, which was borrowed from Dryden. The concluding verses are thefe:

This faid, no more remain'd. Th' etherial host
Again impatient crowd the crystal coast.
The father, now, within his fpacious hands,
Encompafs'd all the mingled mafs of feas and
lands;

And, having heav'd aloft the ponderous sphere,
He launch'd the world to float in ambient air.

Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Arabella Hunt feems to be the beft: his ode for

Ce

Cecilia's Day, however, has fome lines which Pope had in his mind when he wrote his own.

His imitations of Horace are feebly paraphrastical, and the additions which he makes are of little value. He fometimes retains what were more properly omitted, as when he talks of vervain and gums to propitiate Venus.

Of his Translations, the fatire of Juvenal was written very early, and may therefore be forgiven, though it have not the maffinefs and vigour of the original. In all his versions strength and sprightliness are wanting: his Hymn to Venus, from Homer, is perhaps the beft. His lines are weakened with expletives, and his rhymes are frequently imperfect.

His petty poems are feldom worth the coft of criticism: fometimes the thoughts are falfe, and fometimes common. In his verfes on lady Gethin, the latter part is an imitation of Dryden's ode on Mrs. Killigrew; and Doris, that has been so lavishly flattered by Steele, has indeed fome lively ftanzas, but the expreffion might be mended; and the most striking part of the character had been already fhewn in Love for Love. His Art of Pleafing is found

ed

ed on a vulgar but perhaps impracticable prin ciple, and the ftaleness of the fenfe is not concealed by any novelty of illustration or elegance of diction.

This tiffue of poetry, from which he seems to have hoped a lafting name, is totally neglected, and known only as it is appended to his plays.

While comedy or while tragedy is regarded, his plays are likely to be read; but, except what relates to the ftage, I know not that he has ever written a ftanza that is fung, or a couplet that is quoted. The general character of his Miscellanies is, that they fhew little wit, and little virtue.

Yet to him it must be confeffed that we are indebted for the correction of a national error, and for the cure of our Pindarick madness. He firft taught the English writers that Pindar's odes were regular; and though certainly he had not the fire requifite for the higher fpecies of lyrick poetry, he has shewn us that enthusiasm has its rules, and that in mere confufion there is neither grace nor greatnefs.

BLACK

BLACK MORE.

IR RICHARD BLACKMORE is one of

SIR

those men whose writings have attracted much notice, but of whose life and manners very little has been communicated, and whose lot it has been to be much oftener mentioned by enemies than by friends.

He was the fon of Robert Blackmore of Corsham in Wiltshire, ftyled by Wood Gentleman, and fuppofed to have been an attorney: having been for some time educated in a country-school, he was fent at thirteen to Westminster; and in 1668 was entered at Edmund-Hall in Oxford, where he took the degree of M. A. June 3, 1676, and refided thirteen years; a much longer time than it is usual to spend at the university; and which he seems to have paffed with very little attention to the bufinefs of the place; for in his VOL. III.

F

poems,