Page:A Prospect of Manchester and Its Neighbourhood.djvu/12

viii numerous private occurrences, sufficiently calculated to arouse emotions of the heart, favourable to the flow of numbers, and to the melody of verse.

When we consider how many have favoured the world with descriptive poems, and how few have succeeded in producing any thing, worthy the patience of the reader, it may be thought sufficient to intimidate any one, from giving a production of this kind to the press. The difficulty which has been found, of giving interest to a poem purely descriptive, has induced many to introduce scenery, through the medium of a tale. This species of composition, which of late has very much prevailed, marks rather a degeneracy of taste, than otherwise, since it substitutes a story for the ebullitions of the fancy, and the warm painting of the poet. There do but exist three poems of this kind of our language, which are still sought after by the general reader; and these are, "Cooper's Hill," by Sir John Denham; Pope's "Windsor Forest;" and Dyer's "Grongar Hill." This may indeed be thought an arrogant assertion, but it is one, which I think, an examination of the various descriptive