of Geneva. These two sisters claimed the succession to the throne of their fathers. Mero reigned first. Fontenelle represents her as a sorceress, who could convey away bread, and perform acts of conjuration with dead bodies. This is precisely the Lord Peter of Swift, who presents a piece of bread to his two brothers, and says to them, "This, my good friends, is excellent burgundy, these partridges have an admirable flavour!" The same Lord Peter, in Swift, performs throughout the very part that Mero plays in Fontenelle. Thus all is imitation. The idea of the Persian letters is taken from the Turkish Spy. Boiardo has imitated Pulci ; Ariosto has imitated Boiardo. The geniuses, apparently most original, borrow from each other.-Warton.

THE HAPPY LIFE OF A COUNTRY PARSON.

PARSON, these things in thy possessing
Are better than the Bishop's blessing.
A Wife that makes conserves; a Steed
That carries double when there's need;
October store, and best Virginia,
Tythe-Pig, and mortuary Guinea;
Gazettes sent gratis down, and frank'd,
For which thy Patron's weekly thank'd;
A large Concordance, bound long since;
Sermons to Charles the First, when Prince;
A Chronicle of ancient standing;
A Chrysostom to smooth thy band in :
The Polyglott-three parts,—my text:
Howbeit,-likewise-now to my next:
Lo here the Septuagint,-and Paul,
To sum the whole, the close of all.

He that has these, may pass his life, Drink with the Squire, and kiss his wife; On Sundays preach, and eat his fill;

5

10

15

And fast on Fridays-if he will;

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Toast Church and Queen, explain the News,

Talk with Church-Wardens about Pews,

Pray heartily for some new Gift,

And shake his head at Doctor S-t.

WINDSOR-FOREST:

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

GEORGE LORD LANSDOWN.

Non injussa cano: Te nostræ, Vare, myricæ,
Te Nemus omne canet; nec Phœbo gratior ulla est,
Quam sibi quæ Vari præscripsit pagina nomen.-VIRG.

THE design of Windsor-forest is evidently derived from Cooper's Hill, with some attention to Waller's poem on the Park; but Pope cannot be denied to excel his masters in variety and elegance, and the art of interchanging description, narration, and morality. The objection made by Dennis is the want of plan, of a regular subordination of parts, terminating in the principal and original design. There is this want in most descriptive poems; because as the scenes, which they must exhibit successively, are all subsisting at the same time, the order in which they are shown must, by necessity, be arbitrary, and more is not to be expected from the last part than from the first. The attention, therefore, which cannot be detained by suspense, must be excited by diversity, such as this poem offers to its reader.

But the desire of diversity may be too much indulged. The parts of Windsor-forest which deserve least praise, are those which were added to enliven the stillness of the scene; the appearance of Father Thames, and the transformation of Lodona. Addison had, in his Campaign, derided the rivers, that "rise from their oozy beds" to tell stories of heroes, and it is therefore strange that Pope should adopt a fiction not only unnatural, but lately censured. The story of Lodona is told with sweetness; but a new metamorphosis is a ready and puerile expedient. Nothing is easier than to tell how a flower was once a blooming virgin, or a rock an obdurate tyrant.—Johnson.

The poem of Windsor-forest, although properly ranked as descriptive, contains in itself strong indications that the powers of the author were calculated for more elevated subjects and loftier flights. No sooner has he announced the scene of his poem, than he breaks through the narrow bounds by which he is apparently confined, and engages in an historical deduction of the effects produced by the tyranny of our early kings; terminating in the establishment of liberty, and the diffusion of national happiness. To this subject he recurs towards the close of his poem, where he brings down his historical notices to the reign of Queen Ann, and celebrates the peace of Utrecht, then just concluded. Many other passages indicate the attention he had paid to graver and more important subjects, which soon superseded his lighter performances, and showed,

That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,

But stoop'd to truth and moralized his song.

The observations of Dr. Johnson, on the personification of Father Thames, and on the story of Lodona would, if assented to, deprive poetry of one of her chief auxiliaries. That such representations are unnatural must, in a strict sense, be allowed; but poetry employs for her purpose not only what exists in nature, but what may, in possibility, be supposed to exist; and to deprive her of this power, is to prohibit her flights altogether. Neither Caliban nor Ariel exist in nature, and in Johnson's phraseology may therefore be said to be unnatural; but although not in nature, they are not contradictory to our conceptions of what might exist; and it is in

effecting this verisimilitude that the art of the poet consists. To restrain poetry to what is strictly natural, is to reduce it essentially to prose.

It has been said that the conclusion of this poem gave great pain to Addison, both as a poet and a politician; on which Johnson (in his Life of Pope) asks, "why Addison should receive any particular disturbance from the last lines of Windsor-forest?" To which it may be answered, that Addison could scarcely fail to be mortified on finding such splendid talents engaged in the cause of a party in direct opposition to his own, and employed to celebrate a peace, which, in his opinion, was not only inconsistent with the honour and interests of his country, but injurious to the liberty and safety of Europe in general.