ftance rather difpleafing to a nice ear. The Poem opens thus:

Silent Nymph, with curious eye!
Who, the purple ev'ning, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet fings,
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the foreft with her tale;
Come with all thy various hues,
Come and aid thy fifter Muse;
Now while Phoebus riding high
Gives luftre to the land and sky!
Grongar Hill invites my fong,

Draw the landscape bright and strong.

Dyer in general wrote with remarkable fimplicity and clearness, but here is an inftance in which his fenfe is almost inexplicable. What fictitious Perfon is addreffed by the appellation of Silent Nymph, it seems scarcely poffible to difcover. Painting, from the expreffions Sifter Mufe, and various hues, might be meant; but why should Painting be defcribed

described as lying on the mountain's lonely van? Evening, as a profopopoiea, could not be intended, for Evening cannot with any propriety be faid to paint the form of things. Fancy may be thought to have a better claim to the title, but to her, fome of the above circumftances are not applicable. That Fancy, however, was really defigned, is a fact that can be fully ascertained. Few readers are perhaps apprized that Grongar Hill was originally written, and even printed, as an irregular ode. There is a Miscellany volume of poems, collected and published by the celebrated Richard Savage, in the year 1726, in which it appears in that form, very incorrect, and with the initial lines as follows:

FANCY, nymph that loves to lie
On the lonely eminence;

Darting notice through the eye,

Forming thought and feasting sense:

G 2

Thou

290868A

Thou that muft lend imagination wings,
And stamp distinction on all worldly things,
Come, and with thy various hues,
Paint and adorn thy fister muse.

As the paffage ftands at prefent, there must be either a defigned violent elipfis or accidental omiffion of the particle at, in the second line. It might be read thus:

Silent nymph with curious eye!
Who at purple evening lye

The following paragraph rather destroys the unity of defign, by dividing attention between past action, and present, of which laft the principal part of the poem confifts. The image of the poet feated on a bank of flowers, by the fide of a fountain, is nevertheless pretty, and has perhaps merit enough to justify its retention:

Grongar, in whose moffy cells
Sweetly mufing quiet dwells;
Grongar in whose filent shade,
For the modeft Mufes made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,

Sat

Sat upon a flowery bed,

With my hand beneath my head;

While stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood,

Over mead and over wood,

From house to houfe, from hill to hill,
Till contemplation had her fill.

The author now agreeably describes the circumstance of ascending a hill, with the confequent gradual enlargement of the surrounding horizon. The trite fimile of circles on water, is here happily applied. The comparison of material with metaphorical eminence, unhappy fate, &c. interrupts the defcription, and is not ftrictly just; mountains finking in appearance from a fpectator's change of fituation, can have no real analogy with the degradation of a statesman, hero, or other elevated character. The ideas in thefe couplets, Still the prospect, wider, &c.' are so extensive, that they approach to the true fublime :

About his chequer'd fides I wind,

And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves and grottos where I lay,

And viftas fhooting beams of day:

Wide and wider spreads the vale;
Like circles on a smooth canal :
The mountains round, unhappy fate
Sooner or later of all height,

Withdraw their fummits from the skies,

And leffen as the others rife :

Still the profpect wider spreads,

Adds a thousand woods and meads,
Still it widens, widens ftill,

And finks the newly-risen hill.

Some readers may think the following alterations no improvement, but the arrangement is certainly preferable in in point of correctness

Wider and wider spreads the vale,

As circles on a smooth canal;

The mountains round that reach the skies
Subfide, and others o'er them rife,

Still the profpect, &c.

Had all the next paragraph except the first two lines, been fuppreffed, the poem would have fuffered no material lofs, After the landscape was faid to lye below, it was furely needless to say that it spread beneath the fight; nor does the face of Nature,