there had been already any confiderable criticism on his character, might be still augmented by an examination and developement of the beauties in the Loves of the birds, in SPRING, verfe 580. A view of the torrid zone in SUMMER, Verse 626. The rise of fountains and rivers in AUTUMN, verfe 781. A man perishing in the fnows, in WINTER, verse 277. The wolves defcending from the Alps, and a view of winter within the polar circle, verfe 809, which are all of them highlyfinished originals, excepting a few of those blemishes intimated above. WINTER is in my apprehenfion the most valuable of these four poems; the fcenes of it, like those of Il Penferofo of Milton, being of that awful, folemn, and penfive kind, on which a great genius beft delights to dwell.

POPE it seems was of opinion, that defcriptive poetry is a compofition as abfurd as a feaft made up of fauces: and I know many other perfons that think meanly of it.. I will not prefume to fay it is equal, either in dignity

E

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, landfchape painting claims the very next rank to historypainting; being ever preferred to fingle portraits, to pieces of still-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 fpecies; 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.

WE are next to speak of the LYRIC pieces of POPE. He used to declare, that if Dryden had finished a tranflation of the Iliad, he would not have attempted one after fo great a master; he might have faid with more propriety, I will not write a muficode* after Alexander's Feaft, which the

* He wrote this Ode at the request of Steele.

variety

variety and harmony of its numbers, and the beauty and force of its images, have conspired to place at the head of modern lyric compofitions. This of Mr. POPE is, however,

indifputably the fecond of the kind, *"propior tamen primo quam tertio,"

to

* The inferiority of Addison's Óde, to POPE's on this fubject is manifest and remarkable. What profaic tameness and infipidity do we meet with in the following lines?

Cecilia's name does all our numbers grace,

From every voice the tuneful accents fly,
In foaring trebles now it rifes high,

And now it finks and dwells upon the base.

This almost defcends to burlefque, What follows is hardly rhyme, and furely not poetry:

Confecrate the place and day,

To mufic and Cecilia.

Mufic the greatest good that mortals know.→→
Mufic can noble hints impart.-

There follows in this ftanza, which is the third, a defcription
of a fubject very trite, Orpheus drawing the beafts about him.
POPE fhewed his fuperior judgment in taking no notice of this
old story, and selecting a more new, as well as more striking
incident, in the life of Orpheus. It was the custom of this
time, for almost every rhymer to try his hand in an ode on
St. Cecilia; we find many defpicable rhapfodies, fo called, in
Tonfon's Mifcellanies. We have there alfo preferved another,
and an earlier ode, of Dryden on this fubject. One stanza of
which I cannot forbear inferting in this note.
It was fet to
mufic, 1687, by I. Baptifta Draghi.

to use an expreffion of Quintilian. The first stanza is almoft a perfect concert of it-. felf; every different Inftrument is defcribed. and illuftrated, in numbers, that admirably represent, and correfpond, to its different qualities and genius. The beginning of the fecond ftanza, on the power which music exerts over the paffions, is a little flat, and by no means equal to the conclusion of that ftanza. The animating fong that Orpheus fung.to the Argonauts, copied from Valerius

What paffion cannot mufic raise and quell!
When Jubal ftruck the chorded shell,
His lift'ning brethren stood around,
And wondering on their faces fell,
To worship that celeftial found:

Lefs than a god they thought there could not dwell,
Within the hollow of that shell,

That spoke so sweetly and fo well.

What paffion cannot mufic raife and quell!

This is fo complete and engaging a hiftory-piece, that I knew a person of taste who was refolved to have it executed, if an artist could have been found, on one fide of his falloon. In which cafe, faid he, the painter has nothing to do, but to subftitute colours for words, the defign being finished to his hands. The reader doubtless obferves the fine effect of the repetition of the last line; as well as the ftroke of nature, in making thefe rude hearers imagine fome god lay concealed in this first musician's inftrument.

Flaccus,

Flaccus, for that of Apollonius is of a dif-
ferent nature, is the happily chosen subject
of the third. On hearing
On hearing which,

Each chief his fevenfold fhield difplay'd,
And half unfheath'd the fhining blade;

Which effects of the fong, however lively, do not equal the force and fpirit of what Dryden afcribes to the fong of his Grecian artift; for when Timotheus cries out REVENGE, raises the furies, and calls up to Alexander's view a troop of Grecian ghosts that were flain and left unburied, inglorious and forgotten, each of them waving a torch in his hand, and pointing to the hostile temples of the Perfians, and demanding vengeance of their prince, he inftantly started from his throne,

-

Seiz'd a flambeau with zeal to destroy *,

while Thais and the attendant princes rushed out with him to fet fire to the city. The

*Thefe anapelts, for fach they are, have a fine effect.