every object fo as it may give occafion for fome obfervation on human life. Denham himself is not fuperiour to Mr. Dyer in this particular. After painting a landfchape very extenfive and diverfified, he adds;

Thus is nature's vefture wrought,

To inftruct our wandering thought,

Another view from his favourite spot, gives him an opportunity for fliding into the following moralities.

* How close and fmall the hedges lie!

What streaks of meadows cross the eye!
A ftep methinks may pass the ftream,
So little diftant dangers feem;

So we mistake the Future's face
Ey'd through Hope's deluding glass.
As yon fummits foft and fair,
Clad in colours of the air,

Which to those who journey near,
Barren and brown and rough appear,
Still we tread the fame coarse way,
The prefent's still a cloudy day.

* In this light also his poem on the Ruins of Rome deferves.

a perufal. Dodfley's Miscell. vol. i. pag. 78,

་

F 2

THE

!

THE unexpected infertion of fuch reflections, imparts to us the fame pleasure that we feel, when in wandering through a wilderness or grove, we fuddenly behold in the turning of the walk, a ftatue of fome VIRTUE or MUSE.

1r may be observed in general, that Description of the external beauties of nature, is ufually the first effort of a young genius, before he hath studied manners and paffions. Some of Milton's most early, as well as most exquifite pieces, are his Lycidas, L'Allegro, and II Penferofo; if we may except his Ode on the Nativity of Chrift, which is indeed prior in the order of time, and in which a penetrating critic might have discovered the feeds of that boundless imagination, which afterwards was to produce the Paradise Lost, This ode, which, by the way, is not sufficiently read nor admired, is also of the defcriptive kind; but the objects of it's defcription are great, and striking to the imagipation; the falfe deities of the Heathen for

faking their temples on the birth of our faviour; divination and oracles at an end; which facts, though perhaps not historically true, are poetically beautiful.

The lonely mountains o'er,

And the refounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament!
From haunted spring, and dale

Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting Genius is with fighing fent;

With flower-enwoven treffes torn

The nymphs in twilight fhade of tangled thickets mourn*, The lovers of poetry, and to fuch only I write, will not be displeased at my presenting them alfo with the following image, which is fo ftrongly conceived, that methinks I fee at this instant the dæmon it represents;

And fullen Moloch fled

Hath left in fhadows dread,
His burning idol all of blackeft hue;
In vain with cimbals ring

They call the griefly king,

In difmal dance about the furnace blue *.

*On the Morning of Chrift's nativity. Newton's edition, octavo. Vol. ii. pag. 28, 29, of the miscellaneous poems.

See alfo verfes writen at a Solemn mufic, and on the Paffion, in the fame volume; and a vacation exercise, pag. 9. in all which are to be found many strokes of the fublime.

Attention

Attention is irresistibly awakened and engaged

by that air of folemnity, and enthusiasm, that reigns in the following stanzas:

The oracles are dumb*,

No voice or hideous hum,

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving;
No nightly trance, or breathed fpell,

Infpires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell.

Such is the power of true poetry, that one is almost inclined to believe the fuperftitions here alluded to, to be real; and the fucceeding circumstances make one start and look around;

In confecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

The lars and lemurs moan with midnight plaint;

In urns and altars round

A drear and dying found Affrights the flamens at their service quaint! Methinks we behold the priests interrupted in the middle of the fecret ceremonies they were performing, "in their temples dim," gazing with ghaftly eyes on each other, and Pag. 28.

terrified

terrified, and wondering from whence these aërial voices fhould proceed! I have dwelt chiefly on this ode as much less celebrated than L'Allegro and Il Penferofo, which are now univerfally known; but which by a ftrange fatality lay in a fort of obscurity, the private enjoyment of a few curious readers, till they were set to admirable mufic by Mr. Handel. And indeed this volume of Milton's miscellaneous poems has not till very lately met with fuitable regard. Shall I offend any rational admirer of POPE by remarking, that these juvenile descriptive poems of Milton, as well as his latin elegies, are of a ftrain far more exalted than any the former author can boaft? Let me add at the fame time, what juftice obliges me to add, that they are far more incorrect. For in the very ode before us, occur one or two paffages, that are puerile and affected, to a degree not to be parallelled in the purer, but lefs elevated, compofitions of POPE. The season being winter, when Jefus was born, Milton fays,

Nature