The thoughts of Gods let GRANVILLE's verse recite,
And bring the scenes of op'ning fate to light. 426
My humble Mufe, in unambitious strains,
Paints the green forefts and the flow'ry plains,
Where Peace descending bids her olive spring,

And scatters bleffings from her dove-like wing.

Ev'n I more sweetly pass my careless days,
Pleas'd in the filent fhade with empty praise;
Enough for me, that to the lift'ning swains
First in these fields I fung the sylvan strains.

431

Grongar Hill; the Ruins

Several elegant imitations have been given of this fpecies of local poetry; the principal feem to be, of Rome; Claremont, by Garth; Kymber, by Mr. Potter; Kenfington Gardens; Catharine Hill; Faringdon Hill; Newdwood Foreft; Lewefdon Hill; the Deserted Village, and Traveller, of Goldsmith; and the Ode on the diftant Profpect of Eton College.

Pope, it seems, was of opinion, that defcriptive poetry is a composition as abfurd as a feast made up of fauces: and I know many other persons that think meanly of it. I will not prefume to fay it is equal, either in dignity or utility, to thofe compofitions that lay open the internal conftitution of man, and that imitate characters, manners, and fentiments. I may however remind fuch contemners of it, that, in a fifter art, landscape-painting claims the very next rank to history-painting, being ever preferred to fingle portraits, to pieces of ftill-life, to droll figures, to fruit and flower-pieces; that Titian thought it no diminution of his genius, to spend much of his time in works of the former species; and that, if their principles lead them to condemn Thomson, they must also condemn the Georgics of Virgil, and the greatest part of the noblest descriptive poem extant; I mean that of Lucretius.

ODE

ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY,

MDCCVIII.

AND OTHER PIECES FOR MUSIC.

D

ODE FOR MUSIC

ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY".

I.

ESCEND, ye Nine! defcend and fing;
The breathing inftruments infpire,

Wake into voice each filent ftring,
And sweep the founding lyre!

In a fadly-pleafing strain

Let the warbling lute complain :
Let the loud trumpet found,

'Till the roofs all around

The fhrill echos rebound:

NOTES.

* Our Author, as Mr. Harte told me, frequently and earnestly declared, that if Dryden had finished a tranflation of the Iliad, he would not have attempted one, after so great a master; he might have said, with even more propriety, I will not write a mufic ode after Alexander's Feaft; which the variety and harmony of its numbers, and the beauty, force, and energy of its images, have confpired to place at the head of modern Lyric compofitions : always excepting The Bard of Gray, which, being of a more exalted strain than the moral poetry we had been accustomed to, was not, at its first appearance, so much relished as it deserved; but which, I will prefume to fay, will, in every fucceeding year, gain more and more admiration and applause, notwithstanding the unjuft, and I may fay taftelefs, animadverfions which Dr. Johnfon degraded himself by throwing out upon it, in the Lives of the Poets. The subject of Dryden's ode is fuperior to this of Pope's, because the former is hiftorical, and the latter merely mythological. Dryden's is alfo more perfect in the unity of the action; for Pope's is not the recital of one great action, but a description of many of the adventures of Orpheus. We all know, and have felt, the effects of Handel's having set Dryden's ode to mufic. Mr. Smith, a worthy pupil of Handel, (as Mr. Mafon informs us), intended to have fet Mr. Gray's ode to