The other is, where he has been comparing her beauties to gold, and stars, and the most excellent things in nature; and, fearing to be accused of hyperbole, the common charge against poets, vindicates himself by boldly taking upon him, that these comparisons, are no hyperboles; but that the best things in nature do, in a lover's eye, fall short of those excellencies which he adores in her.

What pearls, what rubies can

Seem so lovely fair to man,

As her lips whom he doth love,
When in sweet discourse they move,
Or her lovelier teeth, the while
She doth bless him with a smile?
Stars indeed fair creatures be;
Yet amongst us where is he
Joys not more the whilst he lies
Sunning in his mistress' eyes,
Than in all the glimmering light
Of a starry winter's night?
Note the beauty of an eye-

And if aught you praise it by
Leave such pasion in your mind,
Let

my reason's eye be blind.
Mark if ever red or white

Any where gave such delight,

As when they have taken place
In a worthy woman's face.

To the measure in which these lines are written, the wits of Queen Anne's days contemptuously gave the name of Namby Pamby, in ridicule of Ambrose Phillips, who has used it in some instances, as in the lines on Cuzzoni, to my feeling at least, very deliciously; but Wither, whose darling measure it seems to have been, may shew, that in skilful hands it is capable of expressing the subtilest movements of passion. So true it is, which Drayton seems to have felt, that it is the poet who modifies the metre, not the metre the poet; in his own words, that

It's possible to climb;

To kindle, or to slake;

Altho' in Skelton's rhime*.

A long line is a line we are long repeating.

Hunting take the following-

If thy verse doth bravely tower,

In the Shepherds

As she makes wing, she gets power;
Yet the higher she doth soar,

She's affronted still the more,

'Till she to the high'st hath past,

Then she rests with fame at last.

What longer measure can go beyond the majesty of this! what Alexandrine is half so long in pronouncing, or expresses labour slowly but strongly surmounting difficulty with the life with which it is done in the second of these lines? or what metre could go beyond these, from Philarete

Her true beauty leaves behind
Apprehensions in my mind

Of more sweetness, than all art
Or inventions can impart.

Thoughts too deep to be express'd,
And too strong to be suppress'd.

LETTERS,

UNDER ASSUMED SIGNATURES, PUBLISHED IN

THE REFLECTOR.

LETTER S.

THE LONDONER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE REFLECTOR.

MR. REFLECTOR,-I was born under the shadow of St. Dunstan's steeple, just where the conflux of the eastern and western inhabitants of this twofold city meet and justle in friendly opposition at Temple-bar. The same day which gave me to the world, saw London happy in the celebration of her great annual feast. This I cannot help looking upon as a lively omen of the future great good will which I was destined to bear toward the city, resembling in kind that solicitude which every Chief Magistrate is supposed to feel for whatever concerns her interests and well being. Indeed I consider myself in some sort a speculative Lord Mayor of London: for though circumstances unhappily preclude me from the hope of ever arriving at the dignity of a gold chain and Spital Sermon,