"Cooper's Hill," next to "Sophy," is undoubtedly his best production. Dr. Johnson calls it the first English specimen of _local_ poetry--i.e., of poetry in which a special scene is, through the embellishments of traditionary recollection, moral reflections, and the power of association generally, uplifted into a poetical light. This has been done afterwards by Garth, in his "Claremont;" Pope, in his "Windsor Forest;" Dyer, in his "Gronger-hill," and a hundred other instances. The great danger in this class of poems, is lest imported sentiment and historical reminiscence should overpower the living lineaments, and all but blot out the memory of the actual landscape. And so it is to some extent in "Cooper's Hill," the scene beheld from which is speedily lost in a torrent of political reflection and moralising. The well-known lines on the Thames are rhetorical and forcible, but not, we think, highly poetical:-- "Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full." The poem closes with another river-picture, which some will admire:-- "When a calm river, raised with sudden rains Or snows dissolved, o'erflows the adjoining plains, The husbandmen, with high-raised banks, secure Their greedy hopes, and this he can endure; But, if with bays and dams they strive to force His channel to a new or narrow course, No longer then--within his banks he dwells, First to a torrent, then a deluge swells, Stronger and fiercer by restraint he roars, And knows no bound, but makes his power his shores." Again, he says of Thames:-- "Thames, the most loved of all the ocean's sons By his old sire, to his embraces runs, Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, Like mortal life to meet eternity. Though with those streams he no resemblance hold Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold. His genuine and less guilty wealth t'explore, Search not his bottom, but survey his shore." Yet, though fond of, and great in, describing rivers, he is not, after all, the "river-god" of poetry. Professor Wilson speaks with a far deeper voice:-- "Down falls the drawbridge with a thund'ring shock, And, in an instant, ere the eye can know, Binds the stern castle to the opposing rock, And hangs in calmness o'er the flood below; A raging flood, that, born among the hills, Flows dancing on through many a nameless glen, Till, join'd by all his tributary rills From lake and tarn, from marsh and from fen, He leaves his empire with a kingly glee, And fiercely bids retire the billows of the sea!"