of fenfibility; he recognizes a familiar image, but meets it again amplified and expanded, embellished with beauty, and enlarged with majefty.

Yet could the author, who appears here to have enjoyed the confidence of Nature, lament the death of queen Mary in lines like these :

The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rills
Furrow the brows of all th' impending hills.

The water-gods to floods their rivulets turn,

And each, with ftreaming eyes, fupplies his wanting

urn.

The Fauns forfake the woods, the Nymphs the grove,
And round the plain in fad distractions rove:
In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear,
And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair.
With their sharp nails, themselves the Satyrs wound,
And tug their fhaggy beards, and bite with grief the
ground.

Lo Pan himself, beneath a blasted oak,
Dejected lies, his pipe in pieces broke.
See Pales weeping too, in wild despair,
And to the piercing winds her bofom bare.
And fee yon fading myrtle, where appears
The Queen of Love, all bath'd in flowing tears;

See how the wrings her hands, and beats her breast,
And tears her useless girdle from her waist!
Hear the fad murmurs of her fighing doves!

For grief they figh, forgetful of their loves.

And, many years after, he gave no proof that time had improved his wifdom or his wit; for, on the death of the marquis of Blandford, this was his fong:

And now the winds, which had so long been ftill,
Began the fwelling air with fighs to fill;

The

The water-nymphs, who motionless remain'd,

Like images of ice, while the complain'd,

Now loos'd their ftreams; as when defcending 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 these funeral poems, when he has yelled out many fyllables of fenfelefs dolour, he dimiffes his reader with fenfelefs confolation: from the grave of Paftora rifes a light that forms a ftar; and where Amaryllis wept for Amyntas, from every tear fprung 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 shall have to catch and carry :

'Twas now, when flowery lawns the profpect made, And flowing brooks beneath a foreft fhade,

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 fpringing flowers,
Behold a town arife, bulwark'd with walls and lofty

towers;

Two rival armies all the plain o'erfpread,
Each in battalia rang'd, and fhining arms array'd;
With eager eyes beholding both from far

Namur, the prize and miftrefs of the war.

The Birth of the Mufe is a miferable fiction. One good line it has, which was borrowed from Dryden. The concluding verfes are these :

This faid, no more remain'd.

Th' etherial hoft

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 fphere,

He launch'd the world to float in ambient air.

Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Arabella Hunt feems to be the beft: this ode for St. Cecilia's. Day, however, has fome lines which Pope had in his mind when he wrote his own.

His imitations of Horace are feebly paraphraftical, 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 tranflations, 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 verfions ftrength and sprightlinefs are wanting his Hymn to Venus, from Homer, is perhaps the best. His lines are weakened with expletives, and his rhymes are frequently imperfect.

His petty poems are feldom worth the coft of criticifm; fometimes the thoughts are falfe, and fometimes common. In his verfes on lady Gethin, the

latter

latter part is in imitation of Dryden's ode on Mrs. Killigrew; and Doris, that has been fo lavishly flattered by Steele, has indeed fome lively ftanzas, but the expreffion might be mended; and the most ftriking part of the character had been already fhewn in Love for Love. His Art of Pleafing is founded on a vulgar, but perhaps impracticable principle, and the ftaleness of the fenfe is not concealed by any novelty of illuftration 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 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 Mifcellanies 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 first taught the English writers that Pindar's odes were regular; and though certainly he had not the fire requifite for the highet fpecies of lyrick poetry, he has fhewn us, that enthufiafm has its rules, and that in mere confufion there is neither grace nor greatness.

BLACK

BLACK MORE.

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

He was the fon of Robert Blackmore of Corfham in Wiltshire, ftyled by Wood Gentleman, and fupposed to have been an attorney. Having been for fome time educated in a country-fchool, he was sent 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 ufual to spend at the univerfity; and which he feems to have paffed with very little attention to the bufinefs of the place; for, in his poems, the ancient names of nations or places, which he often introduces, are pronounced by chance. He afterwards travelled at Padua he was made doctor of Phyfick; and, after having wandered about a year and a half on the Continent, returned home.