waterman, and the cinder wench.* Our author, from the foregoing quotation, where he oddly intitles the reformation a ftorm, takes occafion to defcant on that storm, in forty lines, fraught with fimile and antithefis. Religion is here compared to a block and a stork, the frigid and torrid zones, a lethargy, and a calenture. The reader will probably be fatisfied with the laft four couplets:

Who fees these difmal heaps, but would de-
mand,

What barbarous invader fack'd the land?
But when he hears no Goth, no Turk did
bring

This defolation, but a Chriftian king;

When nothing but the name of zeal || appears, "Twixt our beft actions, and the worst of theirs ;

* Shakespeare knew this; his clowns and other low characters often say very fine things; witness Ancient Piftol, when he compares Falstaff's belly to a dunghill.

|| Propriety of fentiment is wanting here.-Zeal was the motive of the Mahometan depredations, as well as of Henry's,

What

What does he think our facrilege would spare,
When fuch the effects of our devotions are?

We are now come to a very important
part of the
poem ; the description of the
Thames. The author one should here
expect would have painted, as nearly as
poffible, the appearance of a fine river,
amidst a beautiful region of hills, woods,
and vallies. Instead of this, we are pre-
fented with a tedious enumeration of
fuppofed qualities, illuftrated by a string
of far fetched and unnatural compari-
fons. Thames the river god, or allego-
rical perfon, and Thames the current of
water, are perpetually confounded toge-
ther. The river god is represented as
a ftrange figure, with a wing, fitting like
a hen to hatch plenty; and afterwards
as finding wealth where it is, bestowing
it where it is wanted; planting cities
in defarts, and woods in cities:

My eye descending from the hill furveys,
Where Thames among the wanton vallies ftrays;

Thames! the most lov'd of all the ocean's fons,
By his old fire, to his embraces runs,
Hafting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.

Though with thofe ftreams he no resemblance
hold,

Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold;
His genuine and lefs guilty wealth || t'explore,
Search not his bottom, but furvey his shore;
O'er which he kindly spreads his fpacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' enfuing spring.
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers, who their infants overlay.
Nor with a fudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, refumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, or mock the plowman's

toil;

But God-like his unwearied bounty flows,

First loves to do, then loves the good he does ;‡

Propriety of fentiment is here again difregarded: no reason can be affigned why corn and grafs are less guilty wealth than amber and gold. Riches are not guilty for what they confift in, but for the mode in which they are acquired, or the use made of them.

The ellipfis of the personal pronoun he at the beginning of this line, produces egregious nonfenfe: as the text ftands, the rivers bounty is faid to love to do the good, and at the fame time the river itself is faid to do it, and the river's bounty to love it.

Nor

Nor are his bleffings to his banks confin'd,
But free and common as the sea or wind;
When he to boaft, or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tribute of his grateful fhores,
Vifits the world, and in his flying tow'rs,

Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, beftows it where it

wants,

Cities in defarts, woods in cities plants;

So that to us, no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bofom is the world's exchange.

The applause which one writer has bestowed, is often taken on truft, and implicitly repeated by another; and when this has been the cafe, prejudice will often attend even thofe who give themfelves the trouble of an examination. Dryden praised two lines in this poem, and then every body praised them. They were afterwards thought worthy of particular differtations on their structure *; and to complete all, Dr. John

* There is a difquifition on them in HUGHES'S Minutes, for an Effay on the Harmony of Verfe; and another in Say's Effay on the numbers of Paradife Loft.

son (whofe attachment to this author seems pretty strong) has honoured them with his notice;

O could I flow like thee, and make thy ftream
My great example, as it is my theme;
Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not
dull;

Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

These lines,' fays Dr. Johnson, ‘are ⚫ in themselves not perfect, for most of the words, thus artfully oppofed, are to be understood fimply on one fide the comparison, and metaphorically on the • other; and if there be any language which does not exprefs intellectual operations by material images, into that language they cannot be tranflated. But as fo much meaning is comprised in fo few words; the par⚫ticulars of resemblance are so perfpica

ciously collected, and every mode of ex⚫cellence separated from its adjacent fault, by fo nice a line of limitation;

• the