have an image that has fince been often adopted:

"But whither am I ftray'd? I need not raise "Trophies to thee from other mens difpraise; "Nor is thy fame on leffer ruins built, "Nor need thy jufter title the foul guilt "Of eastern kings, who, to fecure their reign, "Must have their brothers, fons, and kindred "flain."

After Denham, Orrery, in one of his prologues,

"Poets are fultans, if they had their will; "For every author would his brother kill."

And Pope,

"Should fuch a man, too fond to rule alone, "Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne."

But this is not the best of his little pieces: it is excelled by his poem to Fanfhaw, and his elegy on Cowley.

His praise of Fanshaw's version of Guarini, contains a very spritely and judicious character of a good translator:

"That

f

"That fervile path thou nobly doft decline,
"Of tracing word by word, and line by line.
"Those are the labour'd births of flavish brains,
"Not the effect of poetry, but pains;

Cheap vulgar arts, whofe narrowness affords "No flight for thoughts, but poorly stick at "words.

"A new and nobler way thou doft pursue,
"To make tranflations and tranflators too.
"They but preferve the afhes, thou the flame,
"True to his fenfe, but truer to his fame."

The excellence of these lines is greater, as the truth which they contain was not at that time generally known.

His poem on the death of Cowley was his laft, and, among his fhorter works, his best performance: the numbers are mufical, and the thoughts are just.

COOPER'S HILL is the work that confers upon him the rank and dignity of an original author. He feems to have been, at least among us, the author of a species of compofition that may be denominated local poetry, of which the fundamental fubject is fome

par

particular landschape, to be poetically defcribed, with the addition of fuch embellishments as may be fupplied by historical retrospection, or incidental meditation.

To trace a new scheme of poetry has in itself a very high claim to praise, and its praise is yet more when it is apparently copied by Garth and Pope; after whofe names little will be gained by an enumeration of smaller poets, that have left fcarce a corner of the island not dignified either by rhyme, or blank verfe.

COOPER'S HILL, if it be maliciously inspected, will not be found without its faults. The digreffions are too long, the morality too frequent, and the fentiments fometimes fuch as will not bear a rigorous enquiry.

The four verses, which, fince Dryden has commended them, almost every writer for a century paft has imitated, are generally known:

"O could I flow like thee, and make thy ftream My great example, as it is my theme!

"Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet

"not dull;

"Strong without rage, without o'er-flowing "full."

The lines are in themselves not perfect; for most of the words, thus artfully oppofed, are to be understood fimply on one fide of the comparison, and metaphorically on the other; and if there be any language which does not exprefs intellectual operations by material images, into that language they cannot be tranflated. But fo much meaning is comprized in fo few words; the particulars of resemblance are fo perfpicaciously collected, and every mode of excellence feparated from its adjacent fault by fo nice a line of limitation; the different parts of the sentence are fo accurately adjusted; and the flow of the laft couplet is so smooth and sweet; that the paffage, however celebrated, has not been praised above its merit. It has beauty pecu. liar to itself, and must be numbered among thofe felicities which cannot be produced at will by wit and labour, but must arise unexpectedly in fome hour propitious to poetry.

He

He appears to have been one of the first that understood the neceffity of emancipating tranflation from the drudgery of counting lines and interpreting fingle words. How much this fervile practice obfcured the clearest and deformed the most beautiful parts of the ancient authors, may be discovered by a perufal of our earlier verfions; some of them the works of men well qualified, not only by critical knowledge, but by poetical genius, who yet, by a mistaken ambition of exactness, degraded at once their originals and themselves.

Denham faw the better way, but has not pursued it with great fuccefs. His verfions of Virgil are not pleafing; but they taught Dryden to please better. His poetical imitation of Tully on " Old Age" has neither the clearness of profe, nor the fpriteliness of poetry.

The "ftrength of Denham," which Pope fo emphatically mentions, is to be found in many lines and couplets, which convey much meaning

VOL. I.

I