bleffings of peace.* OLD FATHER THAMËS is raised, and acts, and fpeaks, with becoming dignity. And though the trite and obvious infignia of a river god are attributed, yet there is one circumftance in his appearance highly picturefque,

His fea-green mantle waving with the wind f.

The relievo upon his urn is alfo finely imagined,

The figur❜d ftreams in waves of filver roll'd,
And on their banks Augusta rose in gold ‡.

He has with exquifite skill felected only those rivers as attendants of Thames, who are his fubjects, his tributaries, or neighbours. I cannot refift the pleasure of transcribing the paffage.

Firft the fam'd authors of his ancient name,
The winding Ifis, and the fruitful Tame:
The Kennet swift, for filver eels renown'd,
The Loddon flow, with verdant ofiers crown'd:
Cole, whose dark streams his flowery islands lave,
And chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave:

*Ver. 324.

+ Ver. 48.

E

Ver. 333.

The

The blue tranfparent Vandalis appears;
The gulphy Lee his fedgy treffes rears;
The fullen Mole that hides his diving flood,
And filent Darent ftain'd with British blood*.

As I before produced a paffage of Milton which I thought fuperior to a fimilar one of POPE, I fhall, in order to preserve impartiality, produce another from Milton, in which I think him inferior to the laft quoted paffage, except perhaps in the third line; first remarking that both authors are much indebted to Spenfert, and perhaps to Drayton.

Rivers arife! whether thou be the fon

Of utmoft Tweed, or Oofe, or gulphy Dun,
Or Trent, who like some earth-born giant spreads
His thirty arms along th' indented meads,
Or fullen Mole, that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death,
Or rocky Avon, or of fedgy Lee,
Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name,
Or Medway smooth, or royal-towred Thame ‡.

* Ver. 337.

+ Fairy Queen, B. iv. C. 11.

At a vacation exercife, &c. Ver. 91. Milton was now

aged but nineteen.

THE

THE poets, both ancient and modern, are obliged to the rivers for fome of their most ftriking descriptions. The Tiber, and the Nile of Virgil, the Aufidus of Horace, the Sabrina of Milton, and the Scamander of Homer, are among their capital figures.

THE influences and effects of peace, and its confequence, a diffufive commerce, are expreffed by selecting fuch circumstances, as are beft adapted to ftrike the imagination by lively pictures; the selection of which chiefly conftitutes true poetry. An historian or prosewriter might fay, "Then fhall the most " distant nations croud into my port:" a poet fets before your eyes "the fhips of uncouth form," that shall arrive in the Thames *;

And feather'd people croud my wealthy fide;
And naked youths, and painted chiefs admire

Our speech, our colour, and our strange attire.

And the benevolence and poetry of the fucceeding with, are worthy admiration,

Till the freed Indians, in their native groves,

Reap their own fruits, and woo their fable loves;
Peru once more a race of kings behold,
And other Mexicos be roof'd with gold *.

The two epithets native and fable have peculiar elegance and force; and as Peru was particularly famous for its long fucceffion of Incas, and Mexico for many magnificent works of maffy gold, there is great propriety in fixing the restoration of the grandeur of each to that object, for which each was once fo remarkable.

THE groupe of allegorical perfonages that fucceeds the last mentioned lines, are worthy the pencil of Rubens or Julio Romano: it may, perhaps, however be wished that the epithets barbarous (difcord), mad (ambition), hateful (envy) †, had been particular and picturesque, instead of general and indiscriminating; though it may poffibly be urged, 'that in defcribing the dreadful inhabitants of the portal of hell, Virgil has not always used

* Ver. 407

+ Ver. 411. et feq.

fuch

fuch adjuncts and epithets as a painter or ftatuary might work after; he fays only ultrices CURÆ, mortiferum BELLUM, mala MENTIS GAUDIA; particularly, malefuada is only applied to FAMES, instead of a word that might represent the meagre and ghaftly figure intended. I make no fcruple of adding, that in this famous paffage, Virgil has exhibited no images fo lively and diftinct, as these living figures painted by POPE, each of them with their proper infignia and attributes.

ENVY her own fnakes shall feel*,

And PERSECUTION mourn his broken wheel;
There FACTION roar, REBELLION bite her chain,
And gasping FURIES thirst for blood in vain.

A PERSON of no small rank has informed me, that Mr. Addison was inexpreffibly chagrined at this noble conclufion of WINDSORFOREST, both as a politician and as a poet. As a politician, because it so highly celebrated that treaty of peace which he deemed fo pernicious to the liberties of Europe; and as a

*Ver. 417. et feq.

poet