Note 73 — TO THE MOST HONOURABLE JOHN, LORD MARQUIS OF NORMANBY, EARL OF MULGRAVE,[28] &c. AND KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER. (continued 2)

This celebrated couplet occurs in Sir John Denham's "Cooper's Hill," a poem which was praised beyond its merit by the author's contemporaries. After allowing that the lines are smooth and sonorous, which indeed were infrequent qualities of the versification of the period, I fear much of their merit lies in the skilful antithesis of the attributes of the river.