See how the wrings her hands, and beats her breast, And tears her useless girdle from her waist : Hear the fad murmurs of her fighing doves! For grief they figh, forgetful of their loves. And many years after he gave no proof that time had improved his wisdom or his wit; for on the death of the mar quis of Blandford this was his fong: And now the winds, which had fo long been ftill, Began the fwelling air with fighs to fill: The water-nymphs, who motionless remain'd, Like images of ice, while fhe complain'd, Now loos'd their streams; as when descending rains Roll the steep torrents headlong o'er the plains. The prone creation, who fo long had gaz'd, Charm'd with her cries, and at her griefs amaz❜d, Beger Began to roar and howl with horrid yell, Nothing but groans and fighs were heard around, In both these funeral poems, when he has yelled out many fyllables of fenselefs dolour, he difmiffes his reader with fenfelefs confolation: from the grave of Paftora rifes a light that forms a star; and where Amaryllis wept for Amyntas, from every tear fprung up a violet. But William is his hero, and of William he will fing; The hovering winds on downy wings fhall wait around, And catch, and waft to foreign lands, the flying. found, It cannot but be proper to fhew what they fhall have to catch and carry: Twas now, when flowery lawns the profpect Minade, And fawing.brooks beneath a forest fhade, Their armed heads for fight; by fate of war to prove The victor worthy of the fair-one's love. Unthought prefage of what met next my view; For foon the fhady fcene withdrew. And now, for woods, and fields, and fpringing flowers, Behold a a town arife, bulwark'd with walls and lofty, towers; Two rival armies all the plain o'erspread,........... Each in battalia rang'd, and fhining arms array'd; S With With cager eyes beholding both from far, The Birth of the Mufe is a miferable fiction. One good line it has, which was borrowed from Dryden. The concluding verfes are thefe: This faid, no more remain'd. Th' ethereal hoft Again impatient crowd the crystal coaft. The father, now, within his fpacious hands, Encompass'd all the mingled mass of seas and land's ; And, having heav'd aloft the ponderous sphere, He launch'd the world to float in ambient air. Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Arabella Hunt feems to be the best: his ode for Cecilia's Day, however, has some lines which Pope had in his mind when he wrote his own. His Imitations of Horace are feebly paraphraftical, and the additions which he makes are of little value. He fometimes retains what were more properly omitted, as when he talks of vervain and gums to propitiate Venus. Of his Tranflations the fatire of Juvenal was written very early, and may therefore be forgiven, though it have not the maffynefs and vigour of the original. In all his verfions ftrength and fprightliness are wanting: his hymn to Venus, from Homer, is perhaps the best. His lines are weakened with expletives, and his rhymes are frequently imper fect. C 2 His |