only to confuse attention with a variety of objects. The apoftrophe to Windsor, is abrupt and aukward; and contains matter which will furely find few advocates for its propriety or elegance. To heighten an object, is generally understood to augment or increase it; but meekness certainly cannot be augmented or increased by majestick grace: the reverfe would have been right; majestick grace may be diminished by meekness. What subject was designed by the obscure and affected appellation, pompous load, feems doubtful; probably it was the caftle:

Windfor the next (where Mars and Venus
dwells,

Beauty with ftrength) above the valley fwells
Into my eye, and doth itself present
With fuch an eafy, and unforc'd afcent,
That no ftupendous precipice denies
Accefs, no horror turns away our eyes:
But fuch a rife as doth at once invite
A pleasure and a reverence from the fight.
Thy mighty mafter's emblem, in whose face
Sat meekness, heighten'd with majestic grace;

Such

Such feems thy gentle height, made only proud
To be the bafis of that pompous load,

Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears,
But Atlas only, which supports the spheres.

Sentiments that have no foundation in fact, or in reafon, can have no merit. Such we shall meet with in our next quotation, which, befides, will not be eafily acquitted of profanenefs. That Nature, when forming Windfor-Hill, was guided by a wifer Power than Chance, implies that he is guided by Chance fometimes; and if fhe was guided by a wifer Power in that instance, such Power is moft irreverently introduced on the fuppofed trifling bufinefs of providing a proper fituation for a king's refidence:

When Nature's hand this ground did thus ad

vance,

'Twas guided by a wifer power than Chance ; Mark'd out for fuch an use, as if 'twere meant T'invite the builder, and his choice prevent.*

• Grammatical conftruction is here again flagrantly violated; as the lines ftand, it is nature's hand, not Windfor, that was marked out for a place to build on.

The

The next lines are obvious nonsense. There must exift choice, wherever a thing is chofen, however ftrong the inducement be to chufe it:

Nor can we call it choice, when what we chufe,
Folly or blindness only could refufe.

Comparison with a non-entity, furely cannot elevate a real object. The mythological fables of Atlas, and the towery crown of Cybele, bear no relation, and add no dignity, to an English hill or palace :

A crown of fuch majestic tow'rs doth grace
The gods great mother, when her heavenly

race

Do homage to her

Denham has not even the merit of originality, in this puerile ridiculous comparifon. It had been used before, and better expreffed :

Such is the Berecynthian goddess bright,

In her fwift chariot with high turrets crown'd;
Proud that fo many gods fhe brought to light;
Such was this city in her good days found.

SPENSER'S RUINS of ROME: from BELLAY.`

Not

The verfes in which our author expatiates on the doubtful origin of his royal manfion, certainly do him no great honour:

Not to look back fo far to whom this ifle,
Owes the first glory of so brave a pile;
Whether to Cæfar, Albanact, or Brute,
The British Arthur, or the Danish C'nute;
(Though this of old, no lefs conteft did move,
Than when for Homer's birth feven cities
ftrove ;)

(Like him in birth thou should't be like in
fame,

As thine his fate, if mine had been his flame ;)
But whofoe'er it was, Nature defign'd
For a brave place, and then as brave a mind.

A Defcriptive poem ought, of all poems, to be easily intelligible. Cooper's-Hill is fo obfcure, that repeated perufals are neceffary to difcover its meaning; which when difcovered, is often found to be abfurd. The Poet, from mentioning Windfor, takes occafion to mention Edward the third. Perhaps there cannot be any where found a

more

more ftriking inftance of that species of nonsense, ludicrously styled Hibernicism, than we meet with here. Our author afferts, that in cafe Edward had poffeffed the gift of prescience, he could have prevented both the past and the future, and directed the conduct of his ancestors, and of pofterity. But his own words fhall be quoted, firft in a profe verfion, and then as they ftand in his rhyming couplets. He fays, that • if destiny • had given Edward skill to know her

will, that then all the blood which himself, and his grandfather fhed, and all that these fifter nations bled fince, had been unfpilt; and that he had known, that all which be fpilt had • been his own:"

Had thy great destiny but given thee skill
To know, as well as power to act, her will,
That from those kings who then thy captives

were,

In after times should spring a royal pair;
Who fhould poffefs all that thy mighty power,
Or thy defires more mighty, did devour ;
To whom their better fate referves whate'er
The victor hopes for, or the vanquish'd fear;

That