pleasant than the place we behold; we think the present hour less happy than the hours in expectation.

There is a remarkable fprightliness in the movement of the verfes, in which the Poet exults in the enjoyment of his pleasant fituation:

Now, even now, my joys run high,
As on the mountain-turf I lie;
While the wanton zephyr fings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep;

While the shepherd charms his fheep;
While the birds unbounded fly
And with mufic fill the fky;

Now, even now, my joys run high.
Be full ye courts, be great who will,
Search for peace with all your fkill:
Open wide the lofty door,

Seek her on the marble floor;

In vain you search, she is not there;
In vain ye search the domes of care!

}

Grongar-Hill, had Dyer written nothing else, would have obtained for him the

name

name of a poet; nevertheless, it is the smallest proof of his abilities. The Ruins of Rome, and the Fleece, however neglected by fuperficial readers, or degraded by injudicious criticks, justly intitle him to the highest praise.

Since the above was written, the Author has seen a very ingenious Work,* in which this Poem has obtained confiderable notice. Dyer is there confidered as a landscape painter, painting with words instead of colours; and is pronounced defective in his execution, as wanting contraft of foreground and diftance. It is justly observed, that the objects immediately beneath his eye, and those more remote, are marked with equal ftrength and diftinétnefs; the trees close at hand, are distinguished by their Shapes and hues, and the caftle afar off, by ivy creeping on its walls. Where the describer is supposed to stand, the

OBSERVATIONS on the RIVER WYE, by Mr.

GILPIN

former

former must be visible, the latter could not; and therefore should not have been mentioned. When a man propofes much, and fails of doing it, he discovers inability or negligence; when he profeffes nothing, and does little, we may wish he had done more, but we should not estimate his powers by his performance. Dyer's Poem feems defignedly without plan; it is defultory and diffuse, sketching at random a number of unconnected objects. His hill's extenfive view would probably have afforded feveral complete landscapes, but it is not clear that he aimed at producing any.

ESSAY

ESSAY V.

On DYER'S RUINS of ROME.

FICTIOUS or imaginary scenes or

actions, defcribed or narrated in verse, have always been held in high eftimation. But as fiction is allowed to increase in value, in proportion as it refembles truth, it will of courfe follow, that truth itself, defcribed or narrated in like manner, must be most of all valuable. Fiction and truth are fometimes equally susceptible of poetical ornament, and if both be equally adorned, furely no man

can hesitate a moment to determine which is preferable.

The Descriptive Foem in general has concern only with truth, that is to say, with a real place or fituation, of more or lefs importance. The Poem now under confideration, peculiarly fortunate in its choice, has for its fubject the actual remains of the first city in the universe a subject whose grandeur it must be needlefs, and indeed difficult, to exaggerate; whose history could not fail to intereft, and whose moral must instruct; a fubject affording pictures of past and prefent magnificence, narration of the rife and fall of empire, applaufe of liberty and virtue, and cenfure of tyranny and vice. But even fuch a subject in the hands of a Denham, or a Garth, would have become a Cooper's-Hill, or a Claremont ; would have been degraded with profaisms, and obfcured with metaphors, encumbered with heterogeneous digreffions,

and