The original of the following letter is pre-sire that kindness, one of them being Mr. served in the Library at Lambeth, and was kindly imparted to the public by the reverend Dr. Vyse.

SMITH

EDMUND SMITH is one of those lucky writers, lectual excellence seldom employed to any virwho have, without much labour, attained high reputation, and who are mentioned with reverence rather for the possession than the exertion of uncommon abilities.

transcribe at once than to take by pieces. Ilege, and that college the ornament of the most shall subjoin such little memorials as accident has enabled me to collect.

Mr. EDMUND SMITH was the only son of an eminent merchant, one Mr. Neale, by a daughter of the famous Baron Lechmere. Some misfortunes of his father, which were soon followed by his death, were the occasion of the son's being left very young in the hands of a near relation (one who married Mr. Neale's sister)

whose name was Smith.

learned and polite University; and it was his happiness to have several contemporaries and fellow-students who exercised and excited this virtue in themselves, and others, thereby becom ing so deservedly in favour with this age, and so good a proof of its nice discernment. His judg ment, naturally good, soon ripened into an exquisite fineness and distinguishing sagacity, which, as it was active and busy, so it was vigorous and manly, keeping even paces with a rich and strong imagination, always upon the This gentleman and his lady treated him as wing, and never tired with aspiring. Hence it their own child, and put him to Westminster was, that, though he writ as young as Cowley, School, under the care of Dr. Busby; whence, he had no puerilities; and his earliest producafter the loss of his faithful and generous guar-tions were so far from having any thing in them dian (whose name he assumed and retained) he mean and trifling, that, like the junior composiwas removed to Christchurch, in Oxford, and tions of Mr. Stepney, they may make gray authere by his aunt handsomely maintained till thors blush. There are many of his first essays her death; after which he continued a member in oratory, in epigram, elegy, and epic, still of that learned and ingenious society till within handed about the University in manuscript, five years of his own; though, some time before which show a masterly hand; and though his leaving Christchurch, he was sent for by maimed and injured by frequent transcribing, his mother to Worcester, and owned and ac- make their way into our most celebrated miscelknowledged as her legitimate son; which had lanies, where they shine with uncommon lustre. not been mentioned, but to wipe off the asper-Besides those verses in the Oxford books which sions that were ignorantly cast by some on his birth. It is to be remembered, for our Author's honour, that, when at Westminster election he stood a candidate for one of the universities, he so signally distinguished himself by his conspicuous performances, that there arose no small contention between the representative electors of Trinity College, in Cambridge, and Christchurch, in Oxon, which of those two royal societies should adopt him as their own. But the electors of Trinity College having the preference of choice that year, they resolutely elected him; who yet, being invited at the same time to Christchurch, chose to accept of a studentship there. Mr. Smith's perfections, as well natural as acquired, seem to have been formed upon Horace's plan, who says, in his "Art of Poetry,"

-Ego nec studium sine divite vena,

Nec rude quid profit video ingenium; alterius sic
Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice.

He was endowed by nature with all those excellent and necessary qualifications which are previous to the accomplishment of a great man. His memory was large and tenacious, yet by a curious felicity chiefly susceptible of the finest impressions it received from the best authors he read, which it always preserved in their primitive strength and amiable order.

he could not help setting his name to, several of his compositions came abroad under other names, which his own singular modesty and_faithful silence strove in vain to conceal. The Encænia and public Collections of the University upon State Subjects were never in such esteem, either for elegy and congratulation, as when he contributed most largely to them; and it was natural for those who knew his peculiar way of writing to turn to his share in the work, as by far the most relishing part of the entertainment. As his parts were extraordinary, so he well knew how to improve them; and not only to polish the diamond, but enchase it in the most solid and durable metal. Though he was an academic the greatest part of his life, yet he contracted no sourness of temper, no spice of pedantry, no itch of disputation, or obstinate contention for the old or new philosophy, no assuming way of dictating to others, which are faults (though excusable) which some are insensibly led into who are constrained to dwell long within the walls of a private college. His conversation was pleasant and instructive; and what Horace said of Plotius, Varius, and Virgil, might justly be applied to him:

Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus Amico.

Sat. v. 1. 1

As correct a writer as he was in his most elabo rate pieces, he read the works of others with candour, and reserved his greatest severity for his own compositions; being readier to cherish and advance than damp or depress a rising genius, and as patient of being excelled himself (if any could excel him) as industrious to excel others.

He had a quickness of apprehension and vivacity of understanding which easily took in and surmounted the most subtle and knotty parts of mathematics and metaphysics. His wit was prompt and flowing, yet solid and piercing; his taste delicate, his head clear, and his way of expressing his thoughts perspicuous and engaging. I shall say nothing of his person, which was yet so well turned, that no neglect of himself in his dress could render it disagreeable; insomuch that the fair sex, who observed and esteemed him, at once commended and reproved him by the name of the handsome sloven. An eager but generous He passed through the exercises of the Col and noble emulation grew up with him; which lege and University with unusual applause; and (as it were a rational sort of instinct) pushed though he often suffered his friends to call him him upon striving to excel in every art and off from his retirements, and to lengthen out science that could make him a credit to his Col-I those jovial avocations, yet his return to his

It were to be wished he had confined himself to a particular profession who was capable of surpassing in any; but, in this, his want of ap plication was in a great measure owing to his want of due encouragement.

-Verses as smooth and soft as cream,
In which there was neither depth nor stream.

And therefore, though his want of complaisance for some men's overbearing vanity made him enemies, yet the better part of mankind were obliged by the freedom of his reflections.

His Bodleian Speech, though taken from a remote and imperfect copy, hath shown the world how great a master he was of the Ciceronian eloquence, mixed with the conciseness and force of Demosthenes, the elegant and moving turns of Pliny, and the acute and wise reflections of

Tacitus.

studies was so much the more passionate, and his | or detraction. If he did not always commend intention upon those refined pleasures of reading the compositions of others, it was not ill-nature, and thinking so vehement, (to which his facetious (which was not in his temper,) but strict justice and unbended intervals bore no proportion,) that would not let him call a few flowers set in ranks, the habit grew upon him, and the series of medi- a glib measure, and so many couplets, by the tation and reflection being kept up whole weeks name of Poetry; he was of Ben Jonson's opinion, together, he could better sort his ideas, and take who could not admire in the sundry parts of a science at one view, without interruption or confusion. Some indeed of his acquaintance, who were pleased to distinguish between the wit and the scholar, extolled him altogether on the account of these titles; but others, who knew him better, could not for bear doing him justice as a prodigy in both kinds. He had signalized himself, in the schools, as a philosopher and polemic of extensive know ledge and deep penetration; and went through all the courses with a wise regard to the dignity and importance of each science. I remember him in the Divinity-school responding and disputing with a perspicuous energy, a ready exSince Temple and Roscommon, no man underactness, and commanding force of argument, stood Horace better, especially as to his happy when Dr. Jane worthily presided in the chair; diction, rolling numbers, beautiful imagery, and whose condescending and disinterested commen-alternate mixture of the soft and the sublime. dation of him gave him such a reputation as This endeared Dr. Hannes's odes to him, the silenced the envious malice of his enemies, who finest genius for Latin lyric since the Augustan durst not contradict the approbation of so pro- age. His friend Mr. Philips's ode to Mr. St. John found a master in theology. None of those (late Lord Bolingbroke) after the manner of self-sufficient creatures who have either trifled Horace's Lusory or Amatorian Odes, is certainly with philosophy, by attempting to ridicule it, or have encumbered it with novel terms and bur- of the sublimer kind, though, like Waller's writa masterpiece; but Mr. Smith's "Pocockius" is densome explanations, understood its real weightings upon Oliver Cromwell, it wants not the most and purity half so well as Mr. Smith. He was delicate and surprising turns peculiar to the too discerning to allow of the character of unprofitable, rugged, and abstruse, which some person praised. I do not remember to have seen any thing like it in Dr. Bathurst,* who had made superficial sciolists (so very smooth and polite as to admit of no impression) either out of an un-an excellent judge of humanity; and so good an some attempts this way with applause. He was thinking indolence or an ill-grounded prejudice had affixed to this sort of studies. He knew the thorny terms of philosophy served well to fence in the true doctrines of religion; and looked upon school-divinity as upon a rough but wellwrought armour, which might at once adorn and defend the Christian hero, and equip him for

the combat.

Mr. Smith had a long and perfect intimacy with all the Greek and Latin classics; with which he had carefully compared whatever was worth perusing in the French, Spanish, and Italian, (to which languages he was no stranger,) and in all the celebrated writers of his own country. But then, according to the curious observation of the late Earl of Shaftesbury, he kept the poet in awe by regular criticism; and, as it were, married the two arts for their mutual support and improvement. There was not a tract of credit upon that subject which he had not dili. gently examined, from Aristotle down to Hedelin and Bossu; so that, having each rule constantly before him, he could carry the art through every poem, and at once point out the graces and deformities. By this means he seemed to read with a design to correct as well as imitate.

Being thus prepared, he could not but taste every little delicacy that was set before him; though it was impossible for him at the same time to be fed and nourished with any thing but what was substantial and lasting. He considered the ancients and moderns not as parties or rivals for fame, but as architects upon one and the same plan, the Art of Poetry; according to which he judged, approved, and blamed without flattery

historian, that in familiar discourse he would talk over the most memorable facts in antiquity, the lives, actions, and characters of celebrated men, with amazing facility and accuracy. As he had thoroughly read and digested Thuanus's works, in this kind was so well known and allowed, so he was able to copy after him; and his talent that he had been singled out by some great men to write a history which it was their interest to have done with the utmost art and dexterity. I shall not mention for what reasons this design was dropped, though they are very much to Mr. Smith's honour. The truth is, and I speak it before living witnesses, whilst an agreeable company could fix him upon a subject of useful literature nobody shone to greater advantage; he seemed to be that Memmius whom Lucretius speaks of:

Quem tu, Dea, tempore in omni

Omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus.

His works are not many, and those scattered up and down in miscellanies and collections, being wrested from him by his friends with great difficulty and reluctance. All of them together make but a small part of that much greater body which lies dispersed in the possession of numer ous acquaintance; and cannot perhaps be made entire, without great injustice to him, because few of them had his last hand, and the transcriber was often obliged to take the liberties of a friend. His condolence for the death of Mr.

* Dr. Ralph Bathurst, whose Life and Literary Remains were published in 1761, by Mr. Thomas Warton.-C.

sures he even courted and solicited, submitting to their animadversions and the freedom they took with them with an unreserved and prudent resignation.

Philips is full of the noblest beauties, and hath | disposal of his friends, whose most rigorous cendone justice to the ashes of that second Milton, whose writings will last as long as the English language, generosity, and valour. For him Mr. Smith had contracted a perfect friendship; a passion he was most susceptible of, and whose Jaws he looked upon as sacred and inviolable.

Every subject that passed under his pen had all the life, proportion, and embellishments, bestowed on it, which an exquisite skill, a warm imagination, and a cool judgment, possibly could bestow on it. The epic, lyric, elegiac, every sort of poetry he touched upon, (and he touched upon a great variety,) was raised to its proper height, and the differences between each of them observed with a judicious accuracy. We saw the old rules and new beauties placed in admirable order by each other; and there was a predominant fancy and spirit of his own infused, superior to what some draw off from the ancients, or from poesies here and there culled out of the moderns, by a painful industry and servile imitation. His contrivances were adroit and magnificent; his images lively and adequate; his sentiments charming and majestic; his expressions natural and bold; his numbers various and Bounding; and that enamelled mixture of classical wit, which without redundance and affectation sparkled through his writings, and were no less pertinent and agreeable.

I have seen sketches and rough draughts of some poems to be designed set out analytically; wherein the fable, structure, and connexion, the images, incidents, moral, episodes, and a great variety of ornaments, were so finely laid out, so well fitted to the rules of art, and squared so exactly to the precedents of the ancients, that I have often looked on these poetical elements with the same concern with which curious men are affected at the sight of the most entertaining remains and ruins of an antique figure or building. Those fragments of the learned, which some men have been so proud of their pains in collecting, are useless rarities, without form and without life, when compared with these embryos, which wanted not spirit enough to preserve them; so that I cannot help thinking that if some of them were to come abroad they would be as highly valued by the poets as the sketches of Julio and Titian are by the painters; though there is nothing in them but a few outlines, as to the design and proportion.

be entirely struck out of his character.

It must be confessed, that Mr. Smith had some defects in his conduct, which those are most apt to remember who could imitate him in nothing His "Phædra" is a consummate tragedy, and else. His freedom with himself drew severer the success of it was as great as the most san- acknowledgments from him than all the malice guine expectations of his friends could promise he ever provoked was capable of advancing, and or foresee. The number of nights, and the com- he did not scruple to give even his misfortunes mon method of filling the house, are not always the hard name of faults; but, if the world had the surest marks of judging what encourage-half his good-nature, all the shady parts would ment a play meets with; but the generosity of all the persons of a refined taste about town was remarkable on this occasion: and it must not be forgotten how zealously Mr. Addison espoused his interest, with all the elegant judgment and diffusive good nature for which that accomplished gentleman and author is so justly valued by mankind. But as to "Phædra," she has certainly made a finer figure under Mr. Smith's conduct upon the English stage, than either in Rome or Athens; and if she excels the Greek and Latin "Phædra," I need not say she sur-der which he had honour enough to be easy, passes the French one, though embellished with whatever regular beauties and moving softness Racine himself could give her.

A man who, under poverty, calamities, and disappointments, could make so many friends, and those so truly valuable, must have just and noble ideas of the passion of friendship, in the success of which consisted the greatest, if not the only happiness of his life. He knew very well what was due to his birth, though fortune threw him short of it in every other circumstance of life. He avoided making any, though perhaps reasonable complaints of her dispensations, un

Meo sum pauper in ære.

without touching the favours she flung in his way when offered to him at a price of a more du rable reputation. He took care to have no dealNo man had a juster notion of the difficulty ings with mankind in which he could not be just: of composing than Mr. Smith; and sometimes and he desired to be at no other expense in his he would create greater difficulties than he had pretensions than that of intrinsic merit, which was reason to apprehend. Writing with ease what the only burden and reproach he ever brought (as Mr. Wycherley speaks) may be easily writ-upon his friends. He could say, as Horace did ten, moved his indignation. When he was writ-of himself, what I never yet saw translated: ing upon a subject, he would seriously consider what Demosthenes, Homer, Virgil, or Horace, if alive, would say upon that occasion, which whetted him to exceed himself as well as others. Nevertheless, he could not or would not finish several subjects he undertook: which may be imputed either to the briskness of his fancy, still hunting after a new matter, or to an occasional indolence, which spleen and lassitude brought upon him, which, of all his foibles, the world was least inclined to forgive. That this was not owing to conceit or vanity, or a fulness of himself, (asions which had been conceived in his favour. frailty which has been imputed to no less men than Shakspeare and Jonson,) is clear from hence; because he left his works to the entire

At his coming to town, no man was more surrounded by all those who really had or pretended to wit, or more courted by the great men who had then a power and opportunity of encouraging arts and sciences, and gave proofs of their fondness for the name of patron in many instances, which will ever be remembered to their glory. Mr. Smith's character grew upon his friends by intimacy, and outwent the strongest preposses

Whatever quarrel a few sour creatures, whose obscurity is their happiness, may possibly have to the age, yet amidst & studied neglect and

total disuse of all those ceremonial attendances, | fashionable equipments, and external recommendation, which are thought necessary introductions into the grande monde, this gentleman was so happy as still to please; and whilst the rich, the gay, the noble, and honourable, saw how much he excelled in wit and learning, they easily forgave him all other differences. Hence it was that both his acquaintance and retirements were his own free choice. What Mr. Prior observes upon a very great character was true of him, that most of his faults brought their excuse with them.

Those who blamed him most understood him least, it being the custom of the vulgar to charge an excess upon the most complaisant, and to form a character by the moral of a few, who have sometimes spoiled an hour or two, in good company. Where only fortune is wanting to make a great name, that single exception can never pass upon the best judges and most equitable observers of mankind; and when the time comes for the world to spare their pity, we may justly enlarge our demands upon them for their admiration.

Some few years before his death, he had engaged himself in several considerable undertakings; in all which he had prepared the world to expect mighty things from him. I have seen about ten sheets of his English Pindar, which exceeded any thing of that kind I could ever hope for in our language. He had drawn out a plan of a tragedy of the Lady Jane Grey, and had gone through several scenes of it. But he could not well have bequeathed that work to better hands than where, I hear, it is at present lodged; and the bare mention of two such names may justify the largest expectations, and is sufficient to make the town an agreeable invitation.

Such is the declamation of Oldisworth, written while his admiration was yet fresh, and his kindness warm; and therefore, such as, without any criminal purpose of deceiving, shows a strong desire to make the most of all favourable truth. I cannot much commend the performance. The praise is often indistinct, and the sentences are loaded with words of more pomp than use. There is little, however, that can be contradicted, even when a plainer tale comes to be told.

EDMUND NEALE, known by the name of Smith, was born at Handley, the seat of the Lechmeres, in Worcestershire. The year of his birth is uncertain.*

He was educated at Westminster. It is known to have been the practice of Dr. Busby to detain those youth long at school of whom he had formed the highest expectations. Smith took his master's degree on the 8th of July, 1696; he therefore was probably admitted into the University in 1689, when we may suppose him twenty years old.

His reputation for literature in his college was such as has been told; but the indecency and licentiousness of his behaviour drew upon him, Dec. 24, 1694, while he was yet only bachelor, a public admonition, entered upon record, in order to his expulsion. Of this reproof the effect is not known. He was probably less notorious. At Oxford, as we all know, much will be forgiven to literary merit; and of that he had exhibited sufficient evidence by his excellent ode on the death of the great orientalist, Dr. Pocock, who died in 1691, and whose praise must have been written by Smith when he had been but two years in the University.

This ode, which closed the second volume of the "Musa Anglicanæ," though perhaps some objections may be made to its Latinity, is by far the best lyric composition in that collection; nor do I know where to find it equalled among the modern writers. It expresses, with great felicity, images not classical in classical diction; its digressions and returns have been deservedly recommended by Trapp as models for imitation. pro

His greatest and noblest undertaking was Longinus. He had finished an entire translation of the "Sublime," which he sent to the Reverend Mr. Richard Parker, a friend of his, late of Merton College, an exact critic in the Greek tongue, from whom it came to my hands. The French version of Monsieur Boileau, though truly valuable, was far short of it. He posed a large addition to this work, of notes and observations of his own, with an entire system of the Art of Poetry, in three books, under the titles of Thought, Diction, and Figure. I saw the last of these perfect, and in a fair copy, in which he showed prodigious judgment and reading; and particularly had reformed the Art of Rhetoric, by reducing that vast and confused heap of terms, with which a long succession of pedants had encumbered the world, to a very narrow compass, comprehending all that was useful and ornamental in poetry. Under each head and chapter he intended to make remarks upon all the ancients and moderns, the Greek, Latin, English, French, Spanish, and Italian poets, and to note their several beauties

and defects.

What remains of his works is left, as I am informed, in the hands of men of worth and judgment, who loved him. It cannot be supposed they would suppress any thing that was his, but out of respect to his memory, and for want of proper hands to finish what so great a genius had begun.

He had several imitations from Cowley:

Testitur hinc tot sermo coloribus
Quot tu, Pococki, dissimilis tui
Orator effers, quot vicissim

Te memores celebrare gaudent.

I will not commend the figure which makes the orator pronounce the colours, or give to co lours memory and delight. I quote it, however, as an imitation of these lines:

So many languages he had in store,

That only Fame shall speak of him in more. The simile, by which an old man, retaining the fire of his youth, is compared to Ætna flaming through the snow, which Smith has used with great pomp, is stolen from Cowley, however little worth the labour of conveyance.

He proceeded to take his degree of master of arts, July 8, 1696. Of the exercises which he performed on that occasion, I have not heard any thing memorable,

By his epitaph he appears to have been forty-two years old when he died. He was consequently born a the year 1668.-R.