With boiling pitch another near at hand (From friendly Sweden brought) the Which, well laid o'er, the falt-fea waves And shake them from the rifing beak in drops. Some the gall'd ropes with dawby Or fear-cloth mafts with ftrong tar- To try new frouds one mounts into And one below, their ease or stiffness notes. I fuppofe here is not one term which every reader does not wifh away. His digreffion to the original and progrefs of navigation, with his profpect of the advancement which it fhall receive from the Royal Society, then newly inftituted, may be confidered as an example feldom equalled of seafonable excurfion and artful return. One line, however, leaves me difcontented; he fays, that, by the help of the philofophers, Inftructed fhips fhall fail to quick com merce, By which remoteft regions are allied. Which he is constrained to explain in a note, By a more exact measure of longitude. It had better become Dryden's learning and genius to have laboured fcience D E into poetry, and have fhewn, by explaining longitude, that verfe did not refuse the ideas of philofophy. His defcription of the Fire is painted by resolute meditation, out of a mind better formed to reafon than to feel. The conflagration of a city, with all its tumults of concomitant distress, is one of the moft dreadful fpectacles which this world can offer to human eyes; yet it seems to raise little emotion in the breast' of the poet; he watches the flame coolly from ftreet to street, with now a reflection, and now a fimile, till at last he meets the king, for whom he makes a fpeech, rather tedious in a time fo bufy; and then follows again the progrefs of the fire. There There are, however, in this part some paffages that deserve attention; as in the beginning. The diligence of trades and noiseful gain And luxury more late asleep were laid; All was the night's, and in her filent reign No found the reft of Nature did in vade In this deep quiet The expreffion All was the night's is taken from Seneca, who remarks on Virgil's line, Omnia noctis erant placida compofta qui ete, that he might have concluded better, Omnia nollis erant. The following quatrain is vigorous and animated. The ghofts of traytors from the bridge. defcend With bold fanatick fpectres to rejoice; About the fire into a dance they bend And fing their fabbath notes with feeble voice. His prediction of the improvements which fhall be made in the new city is elegant and poetical, and, with an event which Poets cannot always boast, has been happily verified. The poem concludes with a fimile that might have better been omitted. Dryden, when he wrote this poem, feems not yet fully to have formed his verfification, or fettled his fyftem of pro priety. From |