GRANVILLE Commands; your aid, O Muses, bring! What Muse for GRANVILLE can refuse to sing? 6 The

NOTES.

His Progress of Beauty, and his Essay on Unnatural Flights in Poetry, seem to be the best of his pieces; in the latter are many good critical remarks and precepts, and it is accompanied with notes that contain much agreeable inftruction. For it may be added, his profe is better than his verse. Witness a Letter to a Young Man on his taking Orders, his Obfervations on Burnet, and his Defence of his relation Sir Richard Grenville, and a Translation of fome parts of Demofthenes, and a Letter to his Father on the Revolution, written in October 1688. After having been Secretary at War 1710, Controller and Treasurer to the Houfehold, and of her Majefty's Privy Council, and created a Peer 1711, he was feized as a suspected perfon, at the acceffion of King George the First, and confined in the Tower, in the very chamber that had before been occupied by Sir Robert Walpole. But whatever may be thought of Lord Lanfdown as a poet, his character as a man was highly valuable. His converfation was most pleasing and polite; his affability, and universal benevolence and gentleness, captivating; he was a firm friend, and a fincere lover of his country. WARTON.

Johnson remarks, that this Poem was written after the model of Denham's Cooper's Hill, with perhaps an eye on Waller's Poem of The Park. Marvel has alfo written a Poem on Local Scenery, upon the Hill and Grove at Billborow;" and another, “on Appleton House," (now Nunappleton in Yorkshire).

66

Marvel abounds with conceits and false thoughts, but fome of the deferiptive touches are picturesque and beautiful. His defcription of a gently rifing eminence is more picturesque, although not fo elegantly and justly expreffed, as the fame fubject is in Denham. I tranfcribe the following, as the Poem is but little read :

"See what a soft accefs, and wide,
Lies open to its graffy' fide;

Nor

The Groves of Eden, vanish'd now fo long, Live in description, and look green in song :

REMARKS.

Thefe,

VER. 7. Allufion to Milton's Paradife Loft.

WARTON.

VER. 8. Live in defcription,] Evidently suggested by Waller:

"Of the first Paradife there's nothing found,

Yet the defcription lafts; who knows the fate
Of lives that fhall this Paradife relate?
Inftead of rivers rolling by the fide
Of Eden's garden," &c.

NOTES.

Nor with its rugged path deters
The feet of breathless travellers.
Yet thus it all the plain commands,
And in unenvied greatness stands,
Difcerning farther than the cliff
Of Heaven-daring Tencriff.
How glad the weary seamen haste
When they falute it from the mast!
By night, the northern star their way
Directs, and this no lefs by day.
Upon its creft, this mountain grave,

A plume of aged trees does wave."

Sometimes Marvel obferves little circumstances of rural nature with the eye and feeling of a true Poet :

Then as I careless on the bed
Of gelid frawberries do tread,
And thro' the bazles thick, espy

The hatching thruflle's Shining eye."

The last circumstance is new, highly poetical, and could only have been described by one who was a real lover of nature, and a witness of her beauties in her moft folitary retirements. It is the obfervation of such circumftances, which can alone form an accurate deferiptive rural Poet. In this province of his art, Pope there

fore

These, were my breast inspir'd with equal flame,
Like them in beauty, fhould be like in fame.
Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,
Here earth and water seem to strive again;
Not Chaos-like together crufh'd and bruis'd,
But, as the world, harmonioufly confus'd:

10

Where

REMARKS.

VER. 9. infpir'd with equal flame,] That is (as I understand it), if the Poet were infpired with Milton's poetical flame, then thefe groves, which resemble the groves of Eden, and which, though vanish'd, revive in his song-these groves (of Windsor) should be like in fame, as in beauty. Dr. Warton thinks there is an inconfistency, but I must confefs I do not perceive it; at least, I think there is no expreffion here used but such as is fairly allowable in Poetry.

VER. 10. Like them in beauty, fhould be like in fame]

"Like him in birth thou shouldst be like in fame.

As thine his fate, if mine had been his flame." DENHAM.

1

NOTES.

fore muft evidently fail, as he could not defcribe what his phyfical infirmities prevented his obferving. For the fame reason, Johnfon, as a critic, was not a proper judge of this fort of Poetry,

Before this defcriptive poem on Windfor-Foreft, I do not recollect any other profeffed compofition on local feenery, except the Poems of the Authors already mentioned. For Milton's Allegro, though in part perhaps taken from real scenery, cannot be claffed with poems written profeffedly on particular spots. Denham's is certainly the beft, prior to Pope's: his description of London at a distance, is fublime:

"Under his proud furvey the City lies,

And like a mift beneath a hill doth rife,

Whofe ftate and wealth, the bus'ness and the crowd,
Seems at this distance but a darker cloud.”"

Where order in variety we fee,

And where, tho' all things differ, all

agree.

Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display,
And part admit, and part exclude the day;
As fome coy nymph her lover's warm address
Nor quite indulges, nor can quite repress.
There, interfpers'd in lawns and op'ning glades,
Thin trees arise that shun each other's fhades.
Here in full light the ruffet plains extend:
There wrapt in clouds the blueish hills afcend.

REMARKS.

15

20

Ev'n

VER. 17. Here waving groves, &c.] This defcriptive paffage is not touched with the hand of a great Painter; the distances, the objects, the light, and fhade, are not fufficiently marked :—all is in light, except where it is faid,

"There wrapt in clouds the blueish hills afcend;"

which is well contrafted with the line before,

"Here in full light the ruffet plains extend."

An old oak, or fome particular tree, more circumftantially defcribed, might have been brought into the fore ground;-but a candid Critic is only to examine what is done, not what might be done. Let me be however excufed for faying this, as I am convinced that, in all poetical delineations of rural scenery, the great principles of painting should be kept in mind; and it is fingular, that in a Poem on a Foreft, the majestic oak, the deer, and many other interefting and characteristic circumftances, fhould be all thrown in the diftant ground, whilft objects much less appropriate, the fiber, the fowler, &c. are brought forward.

NOTES.

VER. 15.] Evidently from Cooper's Hill:

"Such was the discord which did first disperse
Form, order, beauty, thro' the universe,"

WARTON.

VER. 19. It is a falfe thought, and gives, as it were, fenti

ment to the groves,

WARTON.

Ev'n the wild heath displays her purple dyes, 25 And 'midst the defert fruitful fields arife,

That crown'd with tufted trees and fpringing corn,
Like verdant ifles the fable wafte adorn.

Let India boast her plants, nor envy we
The weeping amber, or the balmy tree,

While by our oaks the precious loads are born,
And realms commanded which thofe trees adorn.
Not proud Olympus yields a nobler fight,
Tho' Gods affembled grace his tow'ring height,

30

Than

VARIATIONS.

VER. 25. Originally thus:

Why should I fing our better suns or air,
Whofe vital draughts prevent the leach's care,

While through fresh fields th' enliv'ning odours breathe,
Or spread with vernal blooms the purple heath?

NOTES.

POPE.

VER. 33. Not proud Olympus, &c.] Sir J. Denham, in his Cooper's Hill, had faid,

“ Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears,

But Atlas only, which fupports the spheres."

The comparison is childish, as the taking it from fabulous hiftory deftroys the compliment. Our Poet has fhewn more judgment; he has made a manly ufe of as fabulous a circumftance by the artful application of the mythology,

"Where, in their bleffings, all thofe Gods appear," &c. Making the nobility of the hills of Windfor-Foreft to confift in fupporting the inhabitants in plenty.

WARBURTON.

This appears an idle play on the word "fupporting." WARTON. The whole paffage is indeed puerile, and the making the hills nobler than Olympus with all its Gods, becaufe the Gods appear'd in their blefings on the humbler mountains of Windsor, is a thought only to be excused in a very young writer.-This, however, Warburton calls a 66 beautiful turn of wil!”