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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 negotiation gives fufficient evidonce.

About this time, what estate 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 Pembroke.

Of the next years of his life there is no account. At the restoration he obtained, what 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 his place feven thousand pounds.

After the Restoration he wrote the poem on Prudence and Justice, and perhaps fome of his other pieces and as he appears, whenever a ny ferious question comes before him, to have been a man of piety, he confecrated his poetical 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 master and esteem of the publick would now make him happy. But human felicity is short 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 nor whether the malignant lines were then made publick, nor what provocation incited Butler to do that which no provocation can excufe.

His frenzy lafted not long; and he seems 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 deservedly confidered as one of the fathers of English poetry. "Denham and Waller," fays Prior, "improved our verfifica"tion and Dryden perfected it." He has given fpecimens of various compofition, descriptive, 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 ludicrousnefs 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 close committee," be excepted. For grave burlefque, however, his imitation of Davenant fhews him to have been well qualified.

Of his more elevated occafional poems there is perhaps none that does not deserve commendation. In the verses to Fletcher, we have an image that has fince been often adopted; "But whither am I ftray'd? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other mens difpraise; "Nor is thy fame on leffer ruins built, "Nor need thy jufter title the foul guilt

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" Of

"Of eastern kings, who to fecure their reign, "Must have their brothers, fons, and kin"dred 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 births of slavish "brains

"Not the effect of poetry, but pains;

Cheap vulgar arts, whofe narrowness "affords

"No flight for thoughts, but poorly stick "at words.

"A new and nobler way thou doft pursue "To make tranflations and tranflators too.

They but preferve the ashes, thou the flame, "True to his fenfe, but truer to his fame." The excellence of these 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:

performance: the numbers are mufical, and the thoughts are just.

COOPER'S HILL is the work that confers upon him the rank and dignity of an original author. He seems 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 fome embellishments as may be fupplied by historical retrospection, or incidental meditation.

To trace a new scheme 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 whose names little will be gained by an enumeration of smaller poets, that have left scarce a corner of the island undignified by rhime, or blank verse.

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

The four verses, which, fince Dryden has commended them, almost every writer for a century past has imitated, are generally known: "O could I flow like thee, and make thy " stream

My great example, as it is my theme! "Tho' deep yet clear; tho' gentle, yet not "dull;

"Strong without rage, without o'erflowing "full."

The lines are in themselves not perfect: for most of the words, thus artfully opposed, are

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to

to be understood fimply on one fide of the comparison, and metaphorically on the other; and if there be any language which does not express intellectual operations by material images, into that language they cannot be tranflated. But fo much meaning is comprised in fo few words; the particulars of resemblance are fo perfpicacioufly collected, and every mode of excellence separated from its adjacent fault by fo nice a line of limitation; the different parts of the fentence are fo accurately adjusted; and the flow of the laft couplet is so smooth and sweet, 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 must arife unexpectedly in fome hour propitious to poetry.

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

Denham faw the better way, but has not perfued it with great fuccefs. His verfions of Virgil are not pleafing; but they taught Dryden to please better. His poetical imitation of Tully on "Old Age" has neither the clearness of profe, nor the fpriteliness of poetry.

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