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No feas fo rich, fo gay no bank's appear;
No lake fo gentle, and no fpring fo clear,
Not Po fo fwells the fabling Poet's lays,
While led along the fkies his current trays,
As thine which vifits Windfor's fam'd abodes,
To grace the manfion of our earthly gods:
Nor all his fears above a luftre how,
Like the bright beauties on thy banks below;
Where Jove fubda'd by mortal paffion still,

Might change Olympus for a nobler hill."

Thames has really been unfortunate in his poets; Denham undefignedly burlefqued him, and Pope has done him no very enviable honours. Cooper's-Hill, that bad original, is here plainly copied, though it must be owned, with fome improvement. Thames might perhaps have been termed, with propriety, the monarch of the Britifh floods, but there can be no foundation for terming him their father; his ftream does not fupply other rivers with water, but, on the contrary, is fupplied by them. The cak's growing honours, is an affected kind of catachrefis, and the future navies, notwithtanding it prefents the mind with a new idea, is in fact but a redundance; oaks are mentioned as oaks in one line, and future navies is but another name for oaks in the next. There is nothing to which the perfonal pronoun ber, in the fifth line, can poffibly relate; probably it was an error of the prefs for bis. To talk of a river favelling a poet's lays, is at beft puerile. The expreflion here is alfo too general; we are left to guefs whofe lays are fuelled by the Thames. Mortal pallion inftead of a paffion for mortals, is an ambiguous and unwarrantable contraction. Olympus had appeared in fimile before, and now it appears again.'

The oaks rearing their growing honours," exhibits a natural procefs in fplendid but perfectly correct language: and "future navies," as it introduces a new and interefting idea, nearly connected with the former, is certainly no redundancy. "Mortal paffion" is genuine poetical language.

In Grongar-Hill, Mr. Scott, among other defects, remarks the ambiguity of the paffage :

"So we mistake the future's face,

Ey'd through hope's deluding glass."

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This couplet,' he fays, feems Janus like, to look both ways; we know not whether to join it with thofe which precede, or with those that follow; and there is no punctuation that can determine the matter. The fuppofed narrowness of the ftream very well illuftrates the fentiment, that danger in idea is diminished in proportion to its diftance; and that fentiment is fimply, forcibly, and fully expreffed in one line:

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So we mistake the future's face,

Ey'd through hope's deluding glass.

We have a fuperfluous expatiation on the thought: hope's glafs, alfo to bear any relation to the natural circumstance, muft be an inverted telescope, which removes and leffens the object. In this cafe the lines thould have clofed the fentence thus ;

So we mistake the future's face,

Ey'd through hope's deluding glass.

But here the context, by an improper introduction of the relative which, is rendered abfolute nonfenfe; "As yon fummits which appear brown and rough, ftill we tread, &c." But by fubftituting fill for which, we may obtain propriety of expreffion, "As yon fummits foft and fair, fill when approached appear brown and rough, fo ftill we tread, &c." This difputable couplet will, however, on the other hand, connect as eafily with it's fucceffors:

So we mistake the future's face,

Ey'd through hope's deluding glass;
As yon fummits foft and fair,
Clad in colours of the air,

Which to thofe, &c.

This reading alfo will give us grammatical conftruction: -"We mistake the future's face, as we mistake yon fummits, which are airy and beautiful when diftant, but when near, brown and rough. The thought in this paffage is one that feems naturally to occur to the human mind: we feel the fame kind of fenfation when the eye views a delightful profpect, as when the imagination contemplates fuppofed future happinefs: we think the place where we are, lefs pleafant than the place we behold; we think the prefent hour lefs happy than the hours in expectation.'

On The Ruins of Rome the author's remarks are chiefly encomiaftic, and contain little that merits particular notice.

Collins's Oriental Eclogues, Mr. Scott endeavours to rescue from the difrepute into which they have lately fallen; he maintains, that they have all the requifites of a good poem, defcription, incident, fentiment, moral, and melody.

66

Gray's Elegy, which Mr. Knox cenfures, as a confufed heap of fplendid ideas, thrown together without order and without proportion," Mr. Scott thinks perfectly regular, though fimple, in its plan. On the ftanza "Perhaps in this neglected fpot, &c." with the two following, he fays:

The English language probably cannot boaft a finer fpecimen of poetry than thefe ftanzas. The fuppofition of the powers poffeffed, of the circumftances which prevented their exertion, and the illuftrative comparifons, are all communicated with a grandeur and energy that have feldom been equalled. The Poet calls from the graves before him, the hands that might have wielded the fceptre, or truck the lyre, and creates in our imaginations the allegorical beings, who repreffed their progrefs to greatnefs; Knowledge withholding the fight of her roll, and Penury cafting on them a look,

which might be metaphorically faid to freeze or congeal their fa culties *.

There is in Young's Night Thoughts, a profopopoiea of Midnight, waving a lift of mortality in the ftartled eye, or fight of Fancy:

By the long lift of swift mortality,

From Adam downwards to this ev'ning's knell, Which Midnight waves in Fancy's ftartled eye. Gray undoubtedly had read the lines, yet it is queftionable whether he thought of them when he produced this not very diffimilar image of Knowledge with her ample page. The action of the perfon is however properly varied, as the general fubject required; Midnight is expofing the contents of the roll, knowledge is concealing them. There is in Pope's Rape of the Lock, a paffage which poffibly fupplied our author with his fentiment; and there is in Young's Satires, another to which he might be indebted for his turn of expreffion : Like roses that in deferts bloom and die. POPE. Full many a flower is born to blufh unfeen. And waste their mufic on the favage race. YoUNG. And waste their sweetness on the defert air. GRAY.'

GRAY.

Several other ingenious remarks occur in this Effay.

Mr. Scott is of opinion that Goldfmith's Deferted Village is faulty in arrangement, and careless in expreffion of this he brings many decifive proofs: but at the fame time he allowsand we think every reader who is poffeffed of fenfibility muft agree with him-that the poem abounds with beauties of the moft natural and interefting kind.

On Thomson's Seafons Mr. S. makes many ingenious remarks, particularly refpecting the well-known peculiarities of this writer's diction; the general refult of which is, that, in defcribing familiar objects, Thomfon, in the midst of all his excellencies, often produces bombaft on the one hand, or meannefs on the other.

The fpecimens we have given of this work, will, we apprehend, be fufficient to place the writer before our readers under the character of a critic of found judgment. Thefe Effays may

The defigner, and engraver, have more than once employed their respective arts, in producing an embellishment to this noble poem. The poet leaning over a tomb-ftone, given us by one, and the funeral proceffion by another, are trite and abvious ideas. The ftanza in queftion would afford a fine picture: two of Gray's Forefathers of the hamlet, might be introduced repofing from their labour; dignity and grace might be given to their forms; the eye of one beaming celeftial fire, might caft a regretful look at Knowledge turning from him with her folded roll; the other might indignantly regard Penury, who at a distance fhould, with a calm feverity of countenance, point out to him a plough, or fome other inftrument of that cultivation, which it was his lot to attend to.'

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be read with particular advantage by young perfons, who with to exercife and improve their tafte in polite literature: and to those who are farther advanced in the art of criticism, they will afford fome entertainment.

E..

ART. VII. An Universal Hiftory, from the earliest Accounts to the prefent Time; compiled from original Authors. Illuftrated with Charts, Maps, Notes, &c. to Vols. 8vo. 6s. each Volume

bound. Robinsons.

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E fhall confine our prefent account to the firft 18 volumes, being the ancient part of the Univerfal Hiftory, referving Our remarks on the modern part to a future article.

No performance of the kind ever met with greater approbation and encouragement than the Univerfal Hiftory. The ufefulness of such a work, the reputation and acknowledged abilities of the compilers, and the liberality with which the publication of it was carried on, all concurred in recommending the origi nal performance to the Public. So great was the esteem in which it was held, and fo anxious were the learned both at home and abroad for its publication, that tranflations and pirated editions of it were printing in France, Holland, and Ireland, nearly as fast as the original London edition could be worked off at the prefs. This history was first published periodically: five volumes of it, in folio, were completed in the year 1740; the 6th in 1742; and the 7th in 1744. A fecond edition, in octavo, began to be published in 1747, and was carried on monthly, with uncommon fuccefs, till the whole was concluded in twentyone volumes.

The project of this great work was firft formed by Mr. James Crokat, a bookfeller in Fleet-ftreet *; and the plan on which it was to be executed was fuggefted by the famed Mr. Sale, the celebrated tranflator of the Koran; who, for fome time, was the fole conductor of the work, with fuch affiftance as he thought fit to procure. Mr. Sale's conduct was not long agreeable to the proprietors, who found themfelves under the neceffity of taking the work entirely out of his hands, and of engaging feveral authors, of abilities fuited to the different parts of the performance, among these were Dr. John Campbell, Mr. Archibald Bower, Mr. **** (commonly called) Geo. Pfalmanazar, the Rev. John Swinton, and Mr. Shelvocke †, afterwards Secretary to the General Poft-Office.

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James Crokat alfo first planned the well-known Daily Advertifer, and other noted works. He was the greatest literary projector of the age; and died worth-nothing.

By a letter from Dr. Johnfon, inferted in the Gentleman's Magazine for Dec. 1784, it appears the parts which each of these gentlemen took in this work were as follow:

Mr.

In carrying on fo great a work, it was thought neceffary for the feveral authors to have regular meetings, and to examine, in a body, each part, but this was not univerfally confented to; and each author infifted on proceeding in his own way by this means they went much beyond the bounds agreed on, and in many inftances repeated the fame common facts in each separate history. This ill management occafioned frequent quarrels among the authors and proprietors; and had it not been for the prudence and good advice of Pfalmanazar, the work would have been a confufed and injudicious performance; and, though it has many defects, yet his activity and punctuality alone put it on the refpectable footing on which it at prefent ftands. Whoever wishes to fee an account of the management of the publication, will find a circumstantial detail of all the particulars of it, in the Memoirs of Pfalmanazar *.

We could have wished the prefent editors had made ufe of the directions which Pfalman-zar has delivered for making a future edition of fo valuable a work, as perfect as the nature of it would admit they have indeed retrenched many fuperfluities, with which the edition of 1747 abounded; but feveral repetitions yet remain, and though they are not contradictory to each other, yet they increase the bulk of the book, and render it not only more expenfive to the purchafer, but tedious to the reader, who often meets with the fame circumftances related under different heads. The original defign was to have related nothing at length concerning the hiftory of any nation or country, but what was tranfacted within its boundaries; and that the wars, conquefts, &c. which were carried on abroad, fhould be mentioned chiefly in the hiftories of thofe countries where they were made. The editor might have much abridged the Roman hifMr. Swinton. The hiftory of the Carthaginians,-Numidians,Mauritanians, Getulians, -Garamantes,- Melano Gætulians, Nigrita, Cyrenaica,-Marmarica,the Rhegio Syrtica,-Turks,-Tartars,- Moguls,Indians, Chiaefe,-Differtation on the peopling of America on the Independency of the Arabs. Mr. Sale. The Cofmogony, and a finall part of the history immediately following.

Mr. Shelvocke. The hiftory of the Jews, to the birth of Abraham. Mr. Pfalmanazar. The hiftory of the Jews,-Gauls, -Spaniards,— Xenophon's retreat.

Dr. Campbell. The hiftory of the Perfians,-the Conftantinopolitan empire.

Mr. Bower. The Roman hiftory.

The authenticity of this account cannot be queftioned, fince the original in the Rev. Mr. Swinton's own hand-writing, whence Dr. Johnfon obtained the copy, is depofited in the British Mufeuin.

* See an account of this work in our 31ft volume, p. 34. 441.

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