Windfor, whofe characteristick is not fublimity, but beauty:

While the steep horrid roughness of the wood,
Strives with the gentle calmness of the flood;
Such huge extremes, when nature doth unite,
Wonder from thence results, from thence de-
light.

There is certainly no extraordinary merit in the following fanciful allusion; the last two lines indeed have more mufick than Denham's can commonly boast:

The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That had the felf-enamour'd youth gaz'd here,
So fatally deceiv'd he had not been,

While he the bottom, not his face had seen.

Alexander's architect propofed to cut Mount Athos into a ftatue; our author performs the fame operation on his foreft. When we talk of a mountain's head, fide, and foot, cuftom has rendered fuch expreffions tolerable to the ear; but to the idea of its forehead and shoulders, we are

not

There

not quite fo eafily reconciled.
is a want of precifion in representing a
hill as hiding its head among the clouds,
and at the fame time frowning over a
ftream if the head was bid among the
clouds, it must be invifible, confequent-
ly could not be feen to frown. The
poet, when he had introduced a number
of different objects, furely need not have
spoken of their affording variety; and as
he had before expatiated on the wealth
and beauty of his river, it was fuperfluous
to speak of them here again :

But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his fhoulders and his fides
A fhady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle ftream that calmly flows;
While winds and ftorms his lofty forehead beat
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his feet a spacious plain is plac'd
Between the mountain and the ftream em-
brac'd;

Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,

While the kind river, wealth and beauty gives,
And in the mixture of all these appears

Variety, which all the reft endears.

When

When the foreft was defcribed, it was not improper to mention the deer that inhabit it: Denham accordingly mentions them; calls a ftag's horns, nature's mafter-piece, and fays they are placed on the ftag's head, to shew how foon great things are made, but are fooner undone :

There Faunus and Sylvanus keep their courts,
And thither all the horned hoft reforts

To graze the ranker mead, that noble herd,
On whose sublime and shady fronts is rear'd,
Nature's great master-piece; to fhew how foon
Great things are made, but fooner are undone.

Here terminates all defcription of place or profpect. The poem thus far contains two hundred and forty lines, of which one hundred and feventy, and among them all that can boast any thing defcriptive, have been quoted.

To Windfor Foreft a ftag-chace is not peculiar, but it is fufficiently appro

priate to have admitted of a brief notice. A profeffed poem on the subject needed not to have been more tediously circumftantial, that what Denham has here introduced as a kind of episode, or appendage. This part however of his piece is rather the correctest, and is not deftitute of some natural and poetical ideas. Speaking of the ftag, he fays,

So faft he flies, that his reviewing eye,
Has loft the chafers, and his ear the cry.

-He fees the eager chace renew'd,
Himself by dogs, the dogs by men purfu'd.

So fares the ftag among th' enraged hounds, Repels their force, and wounds returns for wounds.

The following may be admired by fome, but it seems to have a doubtful claim to praise :

Now every leaf, and every moving breath
Presents a foe, and every foe a death.

But

But the majority of our author's lines even here, are of different character. The fentiment in the ensuing is unnatural, and confequently unpleafing :

Then curfes his confpiring feet, whose scent
Betrays that fafety which their swiftness lent.
-the herd unkindly wife,

Or chafes him from thence, or from him 'flies;
Like a declining statesman left forlorn
To his friend's pity, and purfuer's fcorn;
With fhame remembers, while himself was one
Of the fame herd, himself the fame had done.

Among other ridiculous conceits, the stag is supposed to die the more contentedly, because he is shot by the king :

-The king a mortal fhaft lets fly From his unerring hand, then glad to die, Proud of the wound, to it refigns his blood, And ftains the chrystal with a purple flood.

The affair of Runny Mead, in describing any place where that meadow could be feen, muft very properly claim

attention.