ftrict juftice would not let him call a few flowers fet in ranks, a glib measure, and fo many couplets, by the name of poetry: he was of Ben Jonfon's opinion, who could not admire

Verfes as smooth and foft as cream,

་་

In which there was neither depth nor ftream.

And therefore, though his want of complaifance for fome 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 fhewn the world how great a mafter he was of the Ciceronian eloquence, mixed with the concifenefs and force of Demofthenes, the elegant and moving turns of Pliny, and the acute and wife reflections of Tacitus.

This

Since Temple and Roscommon, no man underftood Horace better, especially as to his happy diction, rolling numbers, beautiful imagery, and alternate mixture of the foft and the fublime. endeared Dr. Hannes's odes to him, the fineft genius for Latin lyrick fince the Auguftan Age. His friend Mr. Philips's ode to Mr. St. John (late Lord Bolingbroke), after the manner of Horace's Lufory or Amatorian Odes, is certainly a mafter-piece; but Mr. Smith's Pocockius is of the fublimer kind, though, like Waller's writings upon Oliver Cromwell, it wants not the moft delicate and furprifing turns peculiar to the perfon praised. I do not remember to have feen any thing like it in Dr. Bathurft, who had made fome attempts this way with applause. He was an excellent judge of humanity; and fo good

an

an hiftorian, that in familiar difcourfe 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, fo he was able to сору after him; and his talent in this kind was fo well known and allowed, that he had been fingled out by fome great men to write a history; which it was for their intereft to have done with the utmost art and dexterity. I fhall not mention for what reafons this defign was dropped, though they are very much to Mr. Smith's honour. The truth is, and I fpeak it before living witneffes, whilft an agreeable company could fix him upon a fubject of useful literature, nobody fhone to greater advantage; he feemed to be that Memmius whom Lucretius speaks of:

-Quem tu, Dea, tempore in omni

Omnibus ornatum voluifti excellere rebus.

His works are not many, and thofe fcattered up and down in Mifcellanies and Collections, being wrefted from him by his friends with great difficulty and reluctance. All of them together make but a fmall part of that much greater body which lies difperfed in the poffeffion of numerous acquaintance; and cannot perhaps be made intire, without great injuftice to him, because few of them had his laft hand, and the transcriber was often obliged to take the liberties of a friend. His condolence for the death of Mr. Philips is full of the noblest beauties, and hath done juftice to the afhes of that fecond Milton, whofe writings will last as long as the Eng

lish language, generosity, and valour. For him Mr. Smith had contracted a perfect friendship; a paffion he was moft fufceptible of, and whofe laws he looked upon as facred and inviolable.

Every fubject that paffed under his pen had all the life, proportion, and embellishments bestowed on it, which an exquifite fkill, a warm imagination, and a cool judgement, poffibly could beftow on it. The epique, lyrick, elegiac, every fort of poetry he touched upon (and he had touched upon a great variety), was raised to its proper height, and the differences between each of them obferved with a judicious accuracy. We faw the old rules and new beauties placed in admirable order by each other; and there was a predominant fancy and spirit of his own infufed, fuperior to what fome draw off from the ancients, or from poefies here and there culled out of the moderns, by a painful industry and fervile imitation. His contrivances were adroit and magnificent; his images lively and adequate; his fentiments charming and majestick; his expreffions natural and bold; his numbers various and founding; and that enameled mixture of claffical wit, which, without redundance and affectation, fparkled through his writings, and were no lefs pertinent and agreeable.

His Phedra is a confummate tragedy, and the fuccefs of it was as great as the moft fanguine expectations of his friends could promife or forefee. The number of nights, and the common method of filling the house, are not always the fureft marks of judging what encouragement a play meets with: but the generofity of all the perfons of a refined taste

about

about town was remarkable on this occafion; and it muft not be forgotten how zealoufly Mr. Addison efpoufed his intereft, with all the elegant judgement and diffusive good-nature for which that accomplished gentleman and author is fo juftly valued by mankind. But as to Phædra, fhe has certainly made a finer figure under Mr. Smith's conduct, upon the English stage, than either in Rome or Athens; and if the excels the Greek and Latin Phædra, I need not fay fhe furpaffes the French one, though embellished with whatever regular beauties and moving softness Racine himself could give her.

No man had a jufter notion of the difficulty of compofing than Mr. Smith; and he fometimes would create greater difficulties than he had reason to apprehend. Writing with ease, what (as Mr. Wycherley speaks) may be easily written, moved his indignation. When he was writing upon a fubject, he would feriously confider what Demofthenes, Homer, Virgil, or Horace, if alive, would fay upon that occafion, which whetted him to exceed himself as well as others. Nevertheless, he could not, or would not, finish feveral fubjects he undertook; which may be imputed either to the brifknefs of his fancy, fti!l hunting after new matter, or to an occafional indolence, which fpleen and laffitude brought upon him, which, of all his foibles, the world was leaft inclined to forgive. That this was not owing to conceit or vanity, or a fulness of himself (a frailty which has been imputed to no less men than Shakspeare and Jonfon), is clear from hence; because he left his works to the entire difpofal of his friends, whofe most rigorous cenfures he even courted and folicited,

fub

fubmitting to their animadverfions, and the freedom they took with them, with an unreferved and prudent refignation.

I have seen sketches and rough draughts of fome poems to be defigned, fet out analytically; wherein the fable, ftructure, and connexion, the images, incidents, moral, episodes, and a great variety of ornaments, were fo finely laid out, fo well fitted to the rules of art, and squared fo exactly to the precedents of the ancients, that I have often looked on thefe poetical elements with the fame concern with which curious men are affected at the fight of the moft entertaining remains and ruins of an antique figure or building. Thofe fragments of the learned, which fome men have been so proud of their pains in collecting, are ufelefs rarities, without form and without life, when compared with thefe embryos which wanted not fpirit enough to preferve them; fo that I cannot help thinking, that, if fome of them were to come abroad, they would be as highly valued by the poets, as the fketches of Julio and Titian are by the painters; though there is nothing in them but a few outlines, as to the defign and proportion.

It must be confeffed, that Mr. Smith had fome defects in his conduct, which those are most apt to remember who could imitate him in nothing else. His freedom with himself drew feverer acknowledgements from him than all the malice he ever provoked was capable of advancing, and he did not fcruple to give even his misfortunes the hard name of faults; but, if the world had half his good-nature, all the fhady parts would be entirely ftruck out

of his character.

A man,