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pace with this sense of beauty in the poet, is continually urging him to tranflate them into defcription. These descriptions will, indeed, have different degrees of colouring, according to the force of genius in the imitator; but the outlines are the fame in all; in the weak, faint sketches of an ordinary Gothic defigner, as in the living pictures of Homer.

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An instance will explain my meaning. Amidst all that diversity of natural objects, which the poet delights to paint, nothing is fo taking to his imagination, as rural fcenery; which is, always, the first paffion of good poets, and the only one that seems, in any degree, to animate and inspirit bad Now let us take a description of fuch á scene; fuppofe that which Aelian hath left us of the Grecian TEMPE, given from the life and without the heightenings of poetic ornament; and we fhall fee how little the imagination of the moft fanciful poets hath ever done towards improving upon it. Aelian's description is given in these words.

"The Theffalian TEMPE is a place, "fituate between Olympus and Offa; which

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"are mountains of an exceeding great "height; and look, as if they once had "been joined, but were afterwards fepa❝rated from each other, by fome god, for "the fake of opening in the midst that large plain, which ftretches in length to "about five miles, and in breadth a hun"dred paces, or, in fome parts, more. "Through the middle of this plain runs "the Peneus, into which feveral leffer cur"rents empty themselves, and, by the con"fluence of their waters, fwell it into a ri"ver of great fize. This vale is abundantly

furnished with all manners of arbours "and refting places; not fuch as the arts of "human industry contrive, but which the

bounty of spontaneous nature, ambitious, "as it were, to make a fhew of all her "beauties, provided for the supply of this "fair refidence, in the very original ftruc"ture and formation of the place. For "there is plenty of ivy fhooting forth in it, "which flourishes and grows fo thick, that, "like the generous and leafy vine, it crawls "up the trunks of tall trees, and, twining "its foliage round their arms and branches,

becomes almost incorporated with them.

"The

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"The flowering fmilax [e] alfo is there "in great abundance; which, running up "the acclivities of the hills, and spreading "the close texture of its leaves and tendrils "on all fides, perfectly covers and fhades "them; fo that no part of the bare rock is "feen; but the whole is hung with the ver"dure of a thick, inwoven herbage, prefenting the most agreeable spectacle to the

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eye. Along the level of the plain, there "are frequent tufts of trees, and long conti"nued ranges of arching bowers, affording "the moft grateful fhelter from the heats of "fummer; which are further relieved by "the frequent streams of clear and fresh

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water, continually winding through it,

"The tradition goes, that these waters are "peculiarly good for bathing, and have

many other medicinal virtues. In the thic"kets and bushes of this dale are number"lefs finging birds, every where fluttering "about, whose warblings take the ear of 66 paffengers, and cheat the labours of their

[e] Botanifts give it the name of oriental bind-weed. It is faid to be a very rambling plant, which climbs up trees, and rifes to a great height in the Levant, where it particularly flourishes.

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way through it. On the banks of the Pe

neus, on either fide, are difperfed, irregu

larly, thofe refting places, before spoken "of; while the river itself glides through "the middle of the lawn, with a foft and

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quiet lapfe; over-hung with the shades of "trees, planted on its borders, whofe inter

mingled branches keep off the rays of the

fun, and furnish the opportunity of a cool "and temperate navigation upon it. The "worship of the gods, and the perpetual "fragrancy of facrifices and burning odours, "further confecrate the place, &c." [VarHift. lib. III. c. I.]

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Now this picture, which Aelian took from nature, and which any one, if he hath not feen the feveral parts of it fubfifting together, may eafily compound for himself out of that stock of rural images which are repofited in the memory, is, in fact, the fubftance of all thofe luscious and luxuriant paintings, which poetry hath ever been able to feign. For what more is there in the Elyfiums, the Arcadias, the Edens, of antient and modern fame? And the common object of all these pictures being continually present to the eye, what way is there.

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of avoiding the most exact agreement of representation in them? or how, from any fimilarity in the materials, of which they are formed, fhall we infer an imitation?

This agreeable scenery is, for an obvious reason, the most frequent object of defcription. Though fometimes it chufes to itself a dark and fombrous imagery; which nature, again, holds out to imitation; or fancy, which hath a wondrous quickness and facility in oppofing its ideas, readily fuggests. We have an inftance in the picture of that borrid and detefted vale which Tamora defcribes in TITUS ANDRONICUS. It is a perfect contraft to Aelian's, and may be called an Anti-tempe. Or, to fee this oppofition of images in the strongest light, the reader may turn to L'Allegro and Il Penferofo of Milton; where he hath artfully made, throughout the two poems, the fame kind of fubjects excite the two paffions of mirth and melancholy.

When the reader is got into this train, he will eafily extend the fame obfervation to other inftances of natural defcription; and can hardly avoid, after a few trials, coming to this short conclufion," that of all the ❝ various

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