Who vifits with a gun, presents you birds,
Then gives a smacking bufs, and cries, no words!
Or with his hound comes hallowing from the stable,
Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table;
Whose laughs are hearty, tho' his jests are coarse,
And loves you best of all things-but his horfe.

In some fair ev'ning, on your elbow laid,
You dream of triumphs in the rural shade;
In pensive thought recall the fancy'd scene,
See coronations rise on every green;
Before you pass th' imaginary fights
Of lords, and earls, and dukes, and garter'd knights,
While the spread fan, o'er-shades your clofing eyes;
Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies.
Thus vanish scepters, coronets and balls,
And leave you in lone woods, or empty walls!

So when your flave, at some dear idle time,
(Not plagu'd with head-achs, or the want of rhyme)
Stands in the streets, abstracted from the crew,
And while he seems to study, thinks of you;
Juit when his fancy points your sprightly eyes,
Or fees the blush of foft Parthenia rife,
Gay pats my shoulder, and you vania quite,
Streets, chairs, and coxcombs rush upon my fight;
Vex'd to be ftill in town, I knit my brow,
Look four, and hum a tune, as you may now.

CHAP. XIII.

Of Descriptive POETRY.

nothing in nature but what may be described. As poems of this kind, however, are intended more to delight, than instruct, great care should be taken to make them agreeable. The error which young people are most likely to run into is that of dwelling too long on minute circumstances; which not only renders the piece tedious, and trifling, but deprives the reader of the pleasure he would have in making little discoveries of his own; for in defcriptions that are intended as ornamental, the poet should never

say so much but that the reader may perceive he was capable of saying more, and left some things unobserved in compliment to his sagacity. Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penferoso are to be admir'd on this account, as well as others, for in these every thing passes as it were in a review before you, and one thought starts a hundred. Descriptive Poems are made beautiful by similies properly introduced, images of feigned persons, and allusions to ancient fables, or hiftorical facts; as will appear by a perusal of the best of these poems, especially those of Milton abovemention'd, Denham's Cooper's Hill, and Pope's Windsor Forest. The L'Allegro and Il Penseroso we shall introduce as examples, but the others are too long for our purpose.

L'ALLEGRO: Or the lively Pleasures of Mirth.

Hence loathed melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks and fights unholy,
Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low brow'd rocks,
As ragged as thy locks.

In dark Cimmerian defert ever dwell :

But come thou goddess fair and free,
In heav'n ycleap'd Euprofyne,
And by men, heart-easing mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth,
With two fister Graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sages fing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a maying,
There on beds of violets blue,
And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair;
Hafte thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,

Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles,

Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple fleek;

Sport that wrinkled care derides,
And Laughter holding both his fides.

Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,

And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The mountain nymph sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honour due,
-Mirth, admit me of thy crew
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And fingling startle the dull Night,
From his watch tow'r in the skies,
Till the dapple Dawn doth rise;
Then to come in spite of forrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twifted eglantine:
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of Darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn.door,
Stoutly struts his dames before :
Oft lift'ning how the hounds and horn
Chearly rouse the slumb'ring Morn,
From the fide of fome hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill :
Sometime walking not unfeen
By hedge-row elms, or hillocks green,
Right againft the eastern gate,
Where the great Sun begins his ftate,
Rob'd in flames and amber light,
'The clouds in thousand liveries dight,
While the plow-man near at hand
Whiftles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid fingeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Strait mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilft the landskip round it measures,

Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray,
Mountains on whose barren breaft
The lab'ring clouds do often reft,
Meadows trim with daifies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide:
Towers and battlements it fees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The Cynofure of neighb'ring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes.
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrfis met,
Are at their favory dinner set
Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in hafte her bow'r she leaves,
With Theftylis to bind the sheaves;
Or if the earlier season lead
To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with fecure delight
The upland hamlets will invite
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocond rebecks found
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a funshine holy-day,
Till the live-long day-light fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets eat;.
She was pincht, and pull'd, she said,
And he by friar's lanthorn led,
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat,
To earn his cream-bowl duly fet,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lays him down the lubber fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,

:

And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings,
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whisp'ring winds foon lull'd asleep.
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear
In faffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such fights as youthful poets dream
On fummer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Johnson's learned soek be on,
Or sweetest Shakespear, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild;
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting foul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tye
The hidden foul of harmony;
That Orpheus self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed
Of heapt Elysian flow'rs, and hear
Such ftrains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite fet free
His half-regain'd Eurydice.
These delights if thou canft give,
Mirth with thee I mean to live.