"Not thus the land appear'd in ages paft, "The lonely lords of empty wilds and woods: caves, "(For wifer brutes were backward to be flaves;) "What could be free, when lawless beafts 66 obcy'd, "And ev'n the elements a Tyrant fway'd?" This leads our poet to lament the miseries confequential of fuch devaftation, which he bewails with amiable fenfibility. "In vain kind feafons fwell'd the teeming grain, "Soft fhow'rs diftill'd, and funs grew warm " in vain ; "The fwain with tears his fruftrate labour "yields, "And famish'd dies amidst his ripen'd fields." Our poet clofes this melancholy fcene of defolation, with one of the finest pieces of defcription that can be imagined. "The levell'd towns with weeds lie cover'd o'er; "The hollow winds thro' naked temples roar; The last epithet here fems to weaken the force of the former. "Round "Round broken columns clasping ivy twin'd; "O'er heaps of ruin ftalk'd the stately hind; "The fox obfcene to gaping tombs retires, "And favage howlings fill the facred quires." But the groupe of allegorical perfonages to-wards the conclufion, are confeffed to be worthy the pencil of Rubens, or Julio Romano. The effayift candidly owns that Virgil, in defcribing the inhabitants of Hell's portal, has exhibited no images fo lively and diftinct, as the following living pictures painted by POPE, each of them with their proper insignia or attributes, ENVY her own fnakes fhall feel, "And PERSECUTION mourn her broken "wheel: "There FACTION roar, REBELLION bite "her chain, "And gasping furies thirst for blood in vain *" After the several inftances of beautiful defcription, which our critic himself has applauded, together with others, which will be felected or refer * The critic affures us he was informed by a perfon of no fmall rank, that Mr. Addison was inexpreffibly chagrined at this noble conclufion of WINDSOR FOREST, 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 poet, because he was deeply confcious that his own Campaign, that gazette in rhyme, contained no ftrokes of fuch genuine and fublime poetry, as the conclufion before us. red red to, the reader must be left to determine'with what propriety it can be afferted that " defcrip"tive poetry was by no means the fhining ta"lent of POPE." Surely his candour and penetration as a critic had been better difplayed in obferving "that the ftudious cultivation of defcriptive poetry was far below the "poet's comprehension and sublime genius." Our critic is right, nevertheless, in remarking that there are few images introduced which are not applicable to any place whatever, and rather descriptive of rural beauty in general, than of the peculiar beauties of Windfor Foreft. At the fame time it fhould be remembered, that the foreft in its ftate at that time, afforded but few images which could be peculiarly appropriated to it. No magnificent lakes or cafcades, no elegant ftructures, or other beauties with which royal taste and magnificence has fince embellished it, were then appropriated to it. But what beauties were peculiar to it, our poet has defcribed in the introduction of the poem from verfe nine to forty *, and with respect to the other It is obfervable that the critic has cenfured the fimile of the following lines. "Here waving groves a chequer'd fcene difplay, Bohours, other images, though they are not peculiar to the foreft alone, yet they are fo admirably defcribed, that they may be truly faid to be excellent in their kind, and to prove that Mr. POPE poffeffed the talent of defcriptive poetry in a very eminent degree. Our poet's talents, however, ripening daily under the benign and foftering patronage of his noble and ingenious friends, he left fcarce any fpecies of poetical compofition unattempted, and attempted none in which he did not excel. His lyric pieces, which he compofed foon, after his Windfor Foreft, have been defervedly admired: and his Ode on St. Cecilia's birth-day, in particular, has been efteemed the most artful as well as the moft fublime of his leffer compofitions. Bohours, fays he, would rank this comparifon among false thoughts and Italian conceits: the fallacy confifts in giving defign and artifice to the wood, as well as to the coquette; and in putting the light of the fun, and the warmth of a lover, on a level. This is a fault, however, as he acknowledges, very uncommon in the writings of Mr. POPE: And perhaps the fault here imputed to the poet, is rather owing to a mistake in the critic. It is not the nymph's difpofition of mind, to which the chequered fcene is here compared, but to the effects produced by that difpofition, viz. Sun-fhine and gloom : which are natural, in the object of defeription, and intellec→ tual in the objects of comparison. The first stanza expresses the various tones and measures in mufic, and is almoft a perfect concert of itself. The second defcribes their power over the several paffions in general. The third explains their use in inspiring the heroic paffions in particular. The fourth, fifth and fixth, their power over all nature, in the fable of Orpheus's expedition to hell. The feventh and laft concludes in praise of mufic, and the advan¬ tages of the facred above the profane. The beginning of the fecond stanza in the opinion of our critic is a little flat, and by no means equal to the conclufion of it. But we might, on this occafion, very properly answer him by a remark of his own in another part, where he fays, "If we confider that variety, "which in all arts is neceffary to keep up at"tention, we may perhaps affirm with truth "that inequality makes a part of excellence: "That fomething ought to be thrown into "fhades, in order to make the lights more ftrik ing." It may be added, that this inequality or flatness, if our critic chooses to call it fo, is in the inftance before us rather a beauty than a blemish For as the ftanza opens with defcribing the power of mufic in conferring tranquillity and equanimity, it is rather a proof of our poet's skill in adapting his numbers to the feniment, and it would have been very injudicious to have risen too high in the opening, more especially as the ideas which follow, afford him fuch an opportunity of fwelling into a beauti ful |