tain was not at that time generally known. His poem on the death of Cowley was his laft, and, among his shorter works, his best performance: the numbers are mufical, and the thoughts are juft. COOPER'S HILL is the work that confers upon him the rank and dignity of an original author. He seems to have been, at least among us, the author of a fpecies of compofition that may be denominated local poetry, of which the fundamental fubject is fome particular landfchape, to be poetically defcribed, with the addition of such embellishments as may be fupplied by hifto ་ kiftorical retrospection, or incidental me ditation. 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 fmaller poets, that have left fcarce a corner of the island undignified by rhime, or blank verfe. COOPER'S HILL, if it be maliciously infpected, 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 verfes, which, fince Dryden has commended them, almoft every writer for a century past has imitated, are generally known: "O could I flow like thee, and make thy ftream 66 "My great example, as it is my "theme! "Tho'deep yet clear; tho' gentle, yet "not dull; "Strong without rage, without o'erflowing 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 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 comprised in fo few words; the particulars of refemblance 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 fentence are fo accurately adjusted; and the flow of the last couplet is fo fmooth and fweet, that the paffage, however celebrated, has not been praifed above its merit. It has beauty peculiar to itfelf, and must be numbered among thofe felicities which cannot be produced £ 2 duced at will by wit and labour, but muft arife unexpectedly in fome hour propitious to poetry. He appears to have been one of the firft 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; fome of them the works of men well qualified not only by critical knowledge, but by poetical genius, who yet, by a miftaken ambition of exactnefs, degraded at once their originals and them-. felves. Den |