The blue roof closes, or the crescent bends;
New woods aspiring clothe their hills with green,
Smooth slope the lawns, the grey rock peeps between;
Relenting Nature gives her hand to Taste,
200 And Health and Beauty crown the laughing waste.


[_Here oft her Lord_. l. 193. Alluding to the magnificent and beautiful
crescent, and superb stables lately erected at Buxton for the
accomodation of the company by the Duke of Devonshire; and to the
plantations with which he has decorated the surrounding mountains.]

VI. "NYMPHS! YOUR bright squadrons watch with chemic eyes
The cold-elastic vapours, as they rise;
With playful force arrest them as they pass,
And to _pure_ AIR betroth the _flaming_ GAS.
205 Round their translucent forms at once they fling
Their rapturous arms, with silver bosoms cling;
In fleecy clouds their fluttering wings extend,
Or from the skies in lucid showers descend;
Whence rills and rivers owe their secret birth,
210 And Ocean's hundred arms infold the earth.


[_And to pure air_. l. 204. Until very lately water was esteemed a
simple element, nor are all the most celebrated chemists of Europe yet
converts to the new opinion of its decomposition. Mr. Lavoisier and
others of the French school have most ingeniously endeavoured to shew
that water consists of pure air, called by them oxygene, and of
inflammable air, called hydrogene, with as much of the matter of heat,