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more dignity and ease, and convey their thoughts in a mufical and correct verfification. How far the writer in question has fucceeded in thefe refpects, remains to be examined.

Cooper's-Hill, the profeffed fubject of his piece, is not mentioned by name, nor is any account given of its fituation, produce, or hiftory; it ferves, like the stand of a telescope, merely as a convenience for viewing other objects.

The opening of the poem has no proper connection of cause and effect. That there were fome poets, who had never dreamed on Parnaffus, nor drank at Helicon, does by no means infer that Parnaffus and Helicon did not inspire those other poets who had described them. Descriptive poems are generally fuppofed rather to elevate their subject, than to degrade it; but our author plainly tells us, that his Hill would have no

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importance, if his poetry did not render it important. He alfo confounds corporeal flight with intellectual: the circumftance of standing on a hill, could furely be no advantage to the latter :

Sure there are poets who did never dream
Upon Parnaffus, nor did tafte the stream
Of Helicon; we therefore may suppose
Those made not poets, but the poets those.
And as courts make not kings, but kings the

court,

So where the Mufes and their train refort,
Parnaffus ftands: if I can be to thee

A Poet, thou Parnaffus art to me. *
Nor wonder if (advantag'd in thy flight,
By taking wing from thy aufpicious height ;)
Thro' untrac'd ways, and airy paths I fly,
More boundless in my fancy than my eye.

This is every thing relative to the Hill itself; the profpect from it fucceeds.

This couplet, which probably at the time it was written, might be thought a very fine one, seems to have been hinted by two lines quoted by BURTON, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, from an anonymous author:

Be thou the Lady Creffet-light to me,
Sir Trolly Lolly, will I be to thee.

The

The Metropolis and its cathedral are the first subjects of notice. Such a magnificent scene would certainly have inspired a genuine poet with correfpondent ideas. Milton, whofe eye had caught all grand and beautiful objects, and whose imagination feems afterwards to have recalled them with pleasure, has repeatedly described the external appearance of a great city, with much force and elegance:

Some renown'd metropolis,

With gliftering fpires and pinnacles adorn'd,
Which now the rifing fun gilds with his beams.
PARADISE LOST, B. 3. 1. 549,

An imperial city stood,

With tow'rs and temples proudly elevate,
On seven small hills with palaces adorn'd,
Porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts,
Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs,
Gardens and groves.-

PARADISE REGAINED, B. 4. 1. 33.

-Underneath them fair Jerufalem,

The holy city, lifted high her towers;

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And higher yet the glorious temple rear'd
Her pile, far off appearing like a mount
Of alabafter, topt with golden fpires.

PARADISE REGAINED, B. 4. 1. 544.

Denham coldly tells us that St. Paul's is a facred pile, so high and so vast, as to render it uncertain whether it is part of the earth or of the sky; a mountain or a cloud; that it was the theme of a mufe, whofe flight reached and foared above its height; and that it fhall remain fafe from fword and fire, because it is fung by the best of poets, and preserved by the best of kings. The unprejudiced reader will scarcely contend that these thoughts poffefs any remarkable inhe

*St. Paul's, wherever viewed, bears no refemblance to a mountain or a cloud; if it appears at all, it appears as a building. The writer of these remarks has fometimes, from the immediate environs of London, feen the hovering smoke concealing the body of the church, while the cupola, illuminated by the noon-day fun, has feemed as if feated on a cloud, or fufpended in the air. There is a fublimity in this appearance, remarkably pleafing,

rent

rent merit; nor will he perhaps think that they derive any recommendation from being expreffed in the following verfes. The author fays, his eye falutes the place:

Crown'd with that facred pile, fo vast, so high,
That whether 'tis a part of earth or sky
Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud
Aspiring mountain, or descending cloud;
Paul's, the late theme of such a Muse,* whose
flight,

Has bravely reach'd, and foar'd above thy
height:

Now fhalt thou ftand, though sword, or time,
or fire,

Or zeal more fierce than they thy fall conspire;
Secure while thee the beft of poets fings,

Preferv'd from ruin by the best of kings.

Dyer, that fublime, but ftrangely neglected poet, has, in his Ruins of Rome, touched a fimilar fubject with great dignity and conciseness :

That fane was Jove's; its fpacious golden roof
O'er thick furrounding temples beaming wide,

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