COOPER'S HILL.* [DENHAM.] Sure there are poets who did never dream And as courts make not kings, but kings the court, * This poem was originally published so far back as the year 1643. It's author, Sir John Denham, may be considered the founder (to adopt the words of Dr. Johnson) of that species of composition denominated LOCAL POETRY, the fundamental subject of which (as in the poem before us) is some particular landscape, to be poetically described, with the addition of such embellishments as may be supplied by historical retrospection, or incidental meditation.' Pope, in his Windsor Forest,' which is constructed on the model of 'Cooper's Hill,' has celebrated Denham in very lofty strains. Independent of this poem, he is entitled to great merit, as having paved the way for the present improved state of our versification.-Vide Johnson's Lives of the Poets. VOL. III. Parnassus stands; if I can be to thee Paul's, the late theme of such a Muse,* whose flight Under his proud survey the city lies, And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise, Whose state and wealth, the bus'ness and the crowd, Seems at this distance but a darker cloud; And is, to him who rightly things esteems, No other in effect than what it seems; Where with like haste, thro' several ways, they run, Some to undo, and some to be undone ; * Waller. While luxury and wealth, like war and peace, Windsor the next (where Mars with Venus dwells, Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears, |