First the fam'd authors of his ancient name,
The winding Ifis, and the fruitful Tame:
The Kennet fwift for filver eels renown'd;
The Loddon flow with verdant alders
crown'd;

Cole where dark streams his flowery islands
lave,

And chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave;
The blue transparent Vandalis appears

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,
And fullen Mole that hides his diving flood,
And filent Darent stain'd with Danish blood.

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,
(His fea-green mantle waving with the wind)
The god appear'd: he turn'd his azure eyes
Where Windfor's domes and lofty turrets rise;
Then bow'd and fpoke; the winds forget to

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
their woods,

And half thy forests rush into thy floods,
Bear Britain's thunder, and her cross difplay,
To the bright regions of the rifing day;
Tempt icy feas, where scarce the waters roll,
And clearer flames glow round the frozen

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
to fhore,

Till conqueft cease, and flavery be no more;
Till the freed Indians in their native groves
Reap their own fruits, and woo their fable loves:
Peru once more a race of kings behold,
And other Mexicos be roof'd with gold.

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,
Touch the fair fame of Albion's golden days:
The thoughts of gods let Granville's verfe

recite,

And bring the scenes of opening fate to light;

My

My humble mufe in unambitious strains,
Paints the green forefts and the flowery plains,
Where Peace defcending bids her olives fpring,
And scatters bleffings from her dove-like wing.
E'en I more sweetly pass my careless days,
Pleas'd in the filent fhade with empty praise;
Enough for me that to the listening swains,
First in these fields I fung the Sylvan 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