DESCRIPTION OF THE RIVER THAMES.

My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames, among the wanton valleys strays;
Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.

Though with those streams he no remembrance hold
Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold,
His genuine and less guilty wealth to explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring,
And then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay ;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil,
But Godlike his unwearied bounty flows;

First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,
But free and common, as the sea or wind.
When he to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying tours
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours:
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants;

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

Oh! could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.
-Cooper's Hill.

ELEGY UPON COWLEY.

Old Chaucer, like the morning star,
To us discovers day from far.

His light those mists and clouds dissolved
Which our dark nation long involved;
But he, descending to the shades,
Darkness again the age invades ;
Next (like Aurora) Spenser rose,
Whose purple blush the day foreshows;
The other three with his own fires
Phoebus, the poet's god, inspires:

By Shakespeare's, Jonson's, Fletcher's lines,
Our stage's lustre Rome's outshines.
These poets, near our princes sleep,
And in one grave their mansion keep.
They lived to see so many days,
Till time had blasted all their bays;
But cursed be the fatal hour

That plucked the fairest, sweetest flower
That in the Muses' garden grew,

And amongst withered laurels threw.
Time, which made them their fame outlive,
To Cowley scarce did ripeness give.
Old mother-wit and nature gave
Shakespeare and Fletcher all they have:
In Spenser and in Jonson, art

Of slower nature got the start;

But both in him so equal are,

None knows which bears the happiest share.

To him no author was unknown,

Yet what he wrote was all his own;

He melted not the ancient gold,

Nor, with Ben Jonson, did make bold
To plunder all the Roman stores
Of poets and of orators:

Horace his wit and Virgil's state
He did not steal, but emulate;

And when he would like them appear,

Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear :

He not from Rome alone, but Greece,

VOL. VIII.-4

Like Jason, brought the golden fleece;
To him that language-though to none
Of th' others-as his own was known.
On a stiff gale, as Flaccus sings,
The Theban swan extends his wings,
When through th' ethereal clouds he flies
To the same pitch our swan doth rise;
Old Pindar's heights by him are reached;
When on that gale his wings are stretched;
His fancy and his judgment such,
Each to t'other seemed too much :
His severe judgment giving law,
His modest fancy kept in awe.

"A book produces a delightful abstraction from the cares and sorrows of this world."

Painting by S. de Koninck.