The hov'ring winds on downy wings shall wait around,
And catch, and waft to foreign lands, the flying sound.

It cannot but be proper to show what they shall have to catch and carry:

'Twas now, when flow'ry lawns the prospect made,
And flowing brooks beneath a forest shade,
A lowing heifer, loveliest of the herd,
Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls prepar'd
Their armed heads for fight, by fate of war to prove
The victor worthy of the fair one's love.
Unthought presage of what met next my view;
For soon the shady scene withdrew.
And now, for woods, and fields, and springing flowers,
Behold a town arise, bulwark'd with walls and lofty towers;
Two rival armies all the plain o'erspread,
Each in battalia rang'd, and shining arms array'd;
With eager eyes beholding both from far
Namur, the prize and mistress of the war.

The Birth of the Muse is a miserable fiction. One good line it has,
which was borrowed from Dryden. The concluding verses are these:

This said, no more remain'd. Th' ethereal host
Again impatient crowd the crystal coast.
The father now, within his spacious hands,
Encompass'd all the mingled mass of seas and lands;
And, having heav'd aloft the pond'rous sphere,
He launch'd the world to float in ambient air.

Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Arabella Hunt seems to be the best;
his ode for St. Cecilia's Day, however, has some lines which Pope had in
his mind when he wrote his own.

His imitations of Horace are feebly paraphrastical, and the additions
which he makes are of little value. He sometimes retains what were more
properly omitted, as when he talks of _vervain_ and _gums_ to propitiate
Venus.

Of his translations, the satire of Juvenal was written very early, and
may, therefore, be forgiven, though it have not the massiness and vigour
of the original. In all his versions strength and sprightliness are
wanting: his hymn to Venus, from Homer, is, perhaps, the best. His lines
are weakened with expletives, and his rhymes are frequently imperfect.

His petty poems are seldom worth the cost of criticism: sometimes the
thoughts are false, and sometimes common. In his verses on lady Gethin,
the latter part is in imitation of Dryden's ode on Mrs. Killigrew; and
Doris, that has been so lavishly flattered by Steele, has, indeed, some
lively stanzas, but the expression might be mended; and the most
strik