When the foreft was described, 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 fhew how foon great things are made, but are fooner undone :

There Faunus and Sylvanus keep their courts,
And thither all the horned host resorts

To graze the ranker mead, that noble herd,
On whofe fublime and fhady fronts is rear'd,
Nature's great mafter-piece; to fhew how foon
Great things are made, but sooner 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 seventy, 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 tedioufly circumftantial, that what Denham has here introduced as a kind of episode, or appendage. This part however of his piece is rather the correcteft, and is not deftitute of fome 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 stag 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
Prefents 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 enfuing is unnatural, and confequently unpleafing :

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

Or chafes him from thence, or from him flies;
Like a declining statesinan left forlorn
To his friend's pity, and pursuer'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 shaft lets fly

From his unerring hand, then glad to die,
Proud of the wound, to it refigns his blood,
And stains the chrystal with a purple flood.

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

attention.

attention. Such a subject a true poet would have painted in the strongest co

lours. Our author has touched it faintly. His narration is diffuse and of course languid and tedious. It confifts chiefly of profaick quibbling lines, with here and there a few that are tolerable. One thing is obfervable and highly meritorious in Denham, that, courtier as he was, he on this occafion spoke with a manly boldness in praise of civil liberty:

Fair liberty purfu'd, and meant a prey

To lawless Power, here turn'd and ftood at

bay;

When in that remedy all hope was plac'd

Which was, or fhould have been, at least the

laft.

Here was that Charter feal'd wherein the crown
All marks of arbitrary pow'r lays down:
Tyrant and flave, thofe names of hate and

fear,

The happier ftyle of king and subject bear:
Happy when both to the fame centre move,
When kings give liberty, and subjects love.

The intelligent reader, who has attended to the foregoing ftrictures, and examined the extracts by which they are supported, will now perhaps be tempted to exclaim, "Is this the fine

poem that I have been fo taught to • admire? Where are the beautiful de

fcriptions, the interesting histories, the • rational fentiments I have been told ' of?' Should any one, however, suspect that the work contains matter really deferving approbation, he is earnestly requested to fatisfy himself, by a deliberate perufal of the whole.

Pope has credited Denham with improving the English verfification; and talks of

-the eafy vigour of a line,

Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetnefs join.

That Pope could be fo flagrantly mistaken, as really to think that Denham

had