VOLUME of general selections from English rural verse would be incomplete without some passage from Denham's poem of "Cooper's Hill"-a poem so highly lauded by past generations, and which we still read to-day with admiration. Sir John Denham is one of those poets who have met with very opposite treatment from critics of different generations; after receiving the highest commendations from Dryden, from Johnson, from Pope, from Somerville, his bays have been very severely handled in our own time. But allowing him to have been over-praised at one period, shall we for that reason refuse ourselves the pleasure he is assuredly capable of affording us? Is not " Cooper's Hill" a fine old poem of the second class, which the nineteenth century does well to read once in a while? The celebrated lines, quoted a thousand times,
"Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull,
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full,"
were amusingly parodied some fifty years ago by Mr. Soame Jenyns, in his satire upon an unfledged, ignorant memberling of Parliament:
"Without experience, honesty, or sense,
Unknowing in her interests, trade, or laws,
He vainly undertakes his country's cause;
Forth from his lips, prepared at all to rail,
Torrents of nonsense flow like bottled ale;
Though shallow, muddy; brisk, though mighty dull;
Fierce without strength; o'erflowing, though not full.”
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands;
Curt'sied when you have, and kind
(The wild waves whist),
Foot it featly, here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear!
Hark! hark!
The watch-dogs bark;
Hark! hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry cock-a-doodle-doo!
Thames, the most lov'd of all the Ocean's sons,
By his old sire, to his embraces runs;
Hasty to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity,
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold,
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottoms, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for the ensuing spring;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers who 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, or mock the plowman's toil;
But God-like his unwearied bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd,
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 tow'rs
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.
O 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.
Heaven her Eridanus no more shall boast,
Whose fame in thine, like lesser current, lost;
Thy nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine among the stars and bathe the gods.
Here nature, whether more intent to please
Us or herself, with strange varieties,
(For things of wonder give no less delight
To the wise Maker's than beholders' sight;
Though these delights from sev'ral causes move,
For so our children, thus our friends we love),
Wisely she knew the harmony of things,
As well as that of sounds, from discord springs.
Such was the discord which did first disperse
Form, order, beauty, through the universe;
While dryness moisture, coldness heat resists,
All that we have, and that we are, subsists;
While the steep, horrid roughness of the wood
Strives with the gentle calmness of the flood,
Such huge extremes, when Nature doth unite,
Wonder from thence results, from thence delight.
The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That had the self-enamor'd youth gaz'd here,
So fatally deceiv'd he had not been,
While he the bottom, not his face, had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his side
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows;
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat,
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is plac'd,
Between the mountain and the stream embrac'd;
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives;
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.
SIR JOHN DENHAM, 1618-1668.
It is no little recommendation of the rivers we met with here, that almost every one of them is the subject of some pleasing Scotch ditty, which the scene brings to the memory of those who are versed in the lyrics of the country. The elegant simplicity of the verse, and the soothing melody of the music, in almost all the Scotch songs, is universally acknowledged: Tweed-side, and Ettrick's Banks," are not among the least pleasing.
GILPIN'S "Highlands of Scotland," 1789.
On Leven's banks, while free to rove,
And tune the rural pipe to love,
I envied not the happiest swain
That ever trod the Arcadian plain.
Pure stream! in whose transparent wave
My youthful limbs I wont to lave;
No torrents stain thy limpid source;
No rocks impede thy dimpling course,
That sweetly warbles o'er its bed,
With white, round, polish'd pebbles spread;
While, lightly pois'd, the scaly brood,
In myriads cleave thy crystal flood;
The springing trout in speckled pride;
The salmon, monarch of the tide ;
The ruthless pike, intent on war;
The silver eel, and mottled par,
Devolving from thy parent lake,
A charming maze thy waters make,
By bowers of birds, and groves of pine,
And hedges flower'd with eglantine.
Still on thy banks so gayly green,
May num'rous herds and flocks be seen,
And lasses chanting o'er the pail,
And shepherds piping in the dale,
And ancient Faith, that knows no guile,
And Industry embrown'd with toil,
And hearts resolved, and hands prepar❜d,
The blessings they enjoy to guard.
TOBIAS SMOLLETT, 1720-1771.
See the rocky spring,
Clear as joy,
Like a sweet star gleaming!
O'er the clouds, he
In his youth was cradled
By good spirits,
'Neath the bushes in the cliffs.
Fresh with youth
From the cloud he dances
Down upon the rocky pavement;
Thence, exulting,
Leaps to heaven.
For a while he dallies
Round the summit,
Through its little channels chasing
Motley pebbles round and round;
Quick, then, like determined leader,
Hurries all his brother streamlets
Off with him.
There, all round him in the vale,
Flowers spring up beneath his footstep,
And the meadow
Wakes to feel his breath.
But him holds no shady vale
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