venient to want, and very troublesome to fetch. I have formerly read, without much reflection, of the multitude of Scotchmen that travelled with their wares in Poland; and that their numbers were not fmall, the fuccefs of this negociation gives fufficient evidence.

About this time, what eftate the war and the gamefters had left him was fold, by order of the parliament; and when, in 1652, he returned to England, he was entertained by the Earl of Pem-. broke.

Of the next years of his life there is no account. At the Reftoration he obtained that which many miffed, the reward of his loyalty; being made furveyor of the king's buildings, and dignified with the order of the Bath. He feems now to have learned fome attention to money; for Wood fays, that he got by this place feven thoufand pounds.

After the Reftoration, he wrote the poem on Prudence and Juftice, and perhaps fome of his other pieces and as he appears, whenever any ferious queftion comes before him, to have been a man of piety, he confecrated his poçtical powers to religion, and made a metrical verfion of the Pfalms of David. In this attempt he has failed; but in facred poetry who has fucceeded?

It might be hoped that the favour of his mafter and efteem of the publick would now make him happy. But human felicity is fhort and uncertain; a fecond marriage brought upon him fo much difquiet, as for a time difordered his understanding; and Butler lampooned him for his lunacy. I know pot whether the malignant lines were then made pub

lick, nor what provocation incited Butler to do that which no provocation can excufe.

His frenzy lafted not long; and he feems to have regained his full force of mind; for he wrote afterwards his excellent poem upon the death of Cowley, whom he was not long to furvive; for on the 19th of March, 1668, he was buried by his fide.

DENHAM is defervedly confidered as one of the fathers of English poetry. "Denham and Waller," fays Prior, "improved our verfification, and Dry"den perfected it." He has given specimens of various compofition, defcriptive, ludicrous, didactick, and fublime.

He appears to have had, in common with almost all mankind, the ambition of being upon proper occafions a merry fellow, and in common with most of them to have been by nature, or by early habits, debarred from it. Nothing is lefs exhilarating than the ludicroufnefs of Denham; he does not fail for want of efforts; he is familiar, he is grofs; but he is never merry, unless the "Speech against Peace in "the clofe Committee" be excepted. For grave burlefque, however, his imitation of Davenant fhews him to be well qualified.

Of his more elevated occafional poems there is perhaps none that does not deferve commendation. In the verfes to Fletcher, we have an image that has fince been often adopted:

* In Grammont's Memoirs many circumftances are related, both of his marriage and his frenzy, very little favourable to his character. R.

"But

"But whither am I ftray'd? I need not raise
"Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise ;
"Nor is thy fame on leffer ruins built,
"Nor need thy jufter title the foul guilt

"Of eastern kings, who, to fecure their reign, "Must have their brothers, fons, and kindred, flain."

After Denham, Orrery, in one of his prologues,

"Poets are fultans, if they had their will; "For every author would his brother kill."

And Pope,

"Should fuch a man, too fond to rule alone,

"Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne."

But this is not the best of his little pieces: it is excelled by his poem to Fanfhaw, and his elegy on Cowley.

His praise of Fanfhaw's verfion of Guarini contains a very spritely and judicious character of a good tranflator :

"That fervile path thou nobly doft decline,
"Of tracing word by word, and line by line.
"Thofe are the labour'd birth of flavish brains,
"Not the effect of poetry, but pains;
"Cheap vulgar arts, whofe narrowness affords
"No flight for thoughts, but poorly ftick at words.
"A new and nobler way thou dost pursue,
"To make tranflations and tranflators too.
"They but preserve the ashes; thou the flame,
"True to his sense, but truer to his fame."

The excellence of thefe lines is greater, as the truth which they contain was not at that time generally known.

His poem on the death of Cowley was his laft, and, among his fhorter works, his best performance: the numbers are mufical, and the thoughts are juft.

"COOPER'S HILL" is the work that confers upon ⚫ him the rank and dignity of an original author. He feems to have been, at least among us, the author of a fpecies of compofition that may be denominated local poetry, of which the fundamental fubject is fome particular landfcape, to be poetically defcribed, with the addition of fuch embellifhments as may be supplied by historical retrospection or incidental meditation.

To trace a new fcheme of poetry has in itself a very high claim to praise, and its praise is yet more when it is apparently copied by Garth and Pope *; after whofe names little will be gained by an enumeration of finaller poets, that have left fcarcely a corner of the island not dignified either by rhyme, or blank verse.

"COOPER'S HILL," if it be malicioufly inspected, will not be found without its faults. The digreffions are too long, the morality too frequent, and the fentiments fometimes fuch as will not bear a rigorous enquiry.

The four verfes, which, fince Dryden has commended them, almoft every writer for a century past has imitated, are generally known:

"O could I flow like thee, and make thy ftream

*By Garth, in his "Poem on Claremont;" and by Pope, in

his "Windfor Foreft." H.

"Though

"Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; "Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full."

The lines are in themselves not perfect; for moft of the words, thus artfully oppofed, are to be understood fimply on one fide of the comparison, and metaphorically on the other; and if there be any language which does not exprefs intellectual operations by material images, into that language they cannot be tranflated. But fo much meaning is comprized in fo few words; the particulars of resemblance are fo perfpicaciously collected, and every mode of excellence feparated from its adjacent fault by fo nice a line of limitation; the different parts of the fentence are fo accurately adjufted; and the flow of the last couplet is fo fmooth and fweet; that the paffage, however celebrated, has not been praised above its merit. It has beauty peculiar to itself, and must be numbered among thofe felicities which cannot be produced at will by wit and labour, but muft arise unexpectedly in fome hour propitious to poetry.

He appears to have been one of the firft that understood the neceffity of emancipating tranflation from the drudgery of counting lines and interpreting fingle words. How much this fervile practice obfcured the cleareft and deformed the moft beautiful parts of the ancient authors, may be discovered by a perufal of our earlier verfions; fome of them are the works of men well qualified, not only by critical knowledge, but by poetical genius, who yet, by a miftaken ambition of exactnefs, degraded at once their originals and themselves.

Denham