Or with heav'd pole-axe clear'd the field,
Or who in justs and tourneys skill'd,
Before their ladies' eyes renown'd,

Threw horse and horseman to the ground.

A more ingenious comparison can scarcely be found, than that between the modern knights of the garter who have been admitted on account of civic and pacific merits, and the "gentler constellations" placed in the heavens by "letter'd Greece." The sentiments of this piece are wise and laudable; and the regularity of the measure suits the style and subject.

I am in doubt whether to recommend to your notice a poem once famous, the "Dispensary" of Dr. GARTH. It ranks among the mock-heroic, a species of composition in which an uncommon union of wit and poetry is requisite to ensure success. Its subject was of a too confined and temporary nature to be long interesting; nor indeed, when recent, was it distinguished for humour. There is some good serious poetry in it, though unskilfully introduced.

troduced. On the whole, it has not much claim to escape the oblivion to which it seems hastening.

About the same period there were two dramatic writers of great eminence, ConGREVE and Rowe, the first in comedy, the second in tragedy; who, besides, obtained reputation in other kinds of poetry, and are received among the English poets. Yet they are now little read in that capacity, and only a few of their compositions deserve attention. If Dr. Johnson's sentence be just, that Congreve's miscel laneous pieces "show little wit and little virtue," I should be wrong to recommend them at all to your perusal; and indeed the little that is good in them is scarcely worth the pains of selecting from the bad or indifferent. I may, however, just men- · tion his " Ode on Mrs. Arabella Hunt singing," which has something at least very like fine poetry, with a mixture of something equally like nonsense. The description of Silence personified, with its

accom

accompaniments, is carried much beyond the power of the most vigorous conception to follow. Try what image you can "body forth" from these lines:

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An antient sigh he sits upon,

Whose memory of sound is long since gone,
And purposely annihilated for his throne.

A melancholy thought, condens'd to air,
Stol'n from a lover in despair,

Like a thin mantle, serves to wrap
In fluids folds his visionary shape.

We have had painters daring enough to pourtray Milton's Death, though it had no shape distinguishable in member, joint or limb;" but he would be a bolder artist who should attempt a figure of Con greve's Silence.

In his "Elegy on Cynthia weeping and not speaking" he indulges his fancy less, and more consults the natural expression of feeling. That he was well able to ally passion with poetry, he has proved by his single tragedy of "The Mourning Bride,"

which presents some fine examples of this union.

Rowe, however, stands at the head of - our poetical tragedians; and were the drama our subject, I should venture some remarks upon tragedy considered as a poem, which might perhaps support a higher estimate of his merits than modern taste seems to have established. Of his general poetry, his "Translation of Lucan's Pharsalia" is the most considerable work, and it maintains a respectable rank among our metrical versions of the classics. It has, however, that fault from which poetical translation is seldom free,-exaggeration; and this, as the original is inclined to extravagance, has betrayed him into some whimsica instances of bombast. He likewise runs into prolixity: but to transfuse the sense of one of the most nervously concise of Latin writers into English couplets, is a task of so much difficulty, that it claims liberal allowance.

Of his miscellaneous pieces, I can only recommend

recommend to you as excellent, three pastoral ballads, which, for tenderness and true simplicity, appear to me almost unequalled in that kind of composition. "Despairing beside a clear stream" is written in a measure which has since become popular by being adopted by Shenstone and others. In its subject, it may be advantageously compared with Prior's "Alexis," which it surpasses in natural expression. "The Contented Shepherd" very pleasingly personates that unambitious character which is supposed to mark the true lover, to whom the affection of his mistress is more than all the world besides. The piece written on the sickness of the lady addressed in the former, to whom he was afterwards united, is exquisitely tender and pathetic. These humble productions place Rowe higher in my estimation as a poet, than his elaborate birth-day odes, and political eulogies; yet the poem to lord Godolphin upon our military successes is no mean performance.

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