almost all other poets, very frequent use of mythology, and sometimes connects religion and fable too closely without distinction.
He descends to display his knowledge with pedantick ostentation; as when, in translating Virgil, he says, "tack to the larboard"—and "veer starboard;" and talks, in another work, of "virtue spooning before the wind." —His vanity now and then betrays his ignorance:
They Nature's king through Nature's opticks view'd;
Revers'd, they view'd him lessen'd to their eyes.
He had heard of reversing a telescope, and unluckily reverses the object.
He is sometimes unexpectedly mean. When he describes the Supreme Being as moved by prayer to stop the Fire of London, what is his expression?
A hollow crystal pyramid he takes,
In firmamental waters dipp'd above,
Of this a broad extinguisher he makes,
And hoods the flames that to their quarry strove.
