תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

SOMERVILE.

OF Mr. SOMERVILE's life I am not able to say any thing that can fatisfy curiofity.

He was a gentleman whofe eftate was in Warwickfhire; his houfe, where he was born in 1692, is called Edfton, a feat inherited from a long line of ancestors; for he was faid to be of the firft family in his county. He tells of himself that he was born near the Avon's banks. He was bred at Winchefterfchool, and was elected fellow of New College. It does not appear that in the places of his education he exhibited any uncommon proofs of genius or literature. His powers were firft difplayed in the country, where he was diftinguifhed as a poet, a gentleman, and a fkilful and ufeful juftice of the peace.

Of the clofe of his life, those whom his poems have delighted will read with pain the following account, copied from the Letters of his friend Shenftone, by whom he was too much refembled.

[ocr errors]

"Our old friend Somervile is dead! I did not imagine I could have been fo forry as I find myself "on this occafion.-Sublatum quærimus. I can now

"excufe

"excufe all his foibles; impute them to age, and to "diftrefs of circumftances: the laft of thefe confi

"derations wrings my very foul to think on. For a

[ocr errors]

man of high fpirit, confcious of having (at least "in one production) generally pleafed the world, to "be plagued and threatened by wretches that are "low in every fenfe; to be forced to drink himself "into pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a mifery."

66

He died July 19, 1742, and was buried at Wotton, near Henley on Arden.

His diftreffes need not be much pitied his eftate is faid to have been fifteen hundred a year, which by his death devolved to lord Somervile of Scotland. His mother indeed, who lived till ninety, had a jointure of fix hundred.

It is with regret that I find myself not better enabled to exhibit memorials of a writer, who at least must be allowed to have fet a good example to men of his own class, by devoting part of his time to elegant knowledge; and who has fhewn, by the fubjects which his poetry has adorned, that it is practicable to be at once a fkilful sportsman and a man of letters.

66

Somervile has tried many modes of poetry; and though perhaps he has not in any reached fuch excellence as to raife much envy, it may commonly be faid at least, that he writes very well for a gentleman." His ferious pieces are fometimes elevated, and his trifles are fometimes elegant. In his verses to Addifa, the couplet which mentions Clio is written with the moft exquifite delicacy of praife; it exhibits one of thofe happy ftrokes that

[blocks in formation]

áre feldom attained. In his Odes to Marlborough there are beautiful lines; but in the fecond Ode he fhews that he knew little of his hero, when he talks of his private virtues. His fubjects are commonly fuch as require no great depth of thought or energy of expreffion. His Fables are generally ftale, and therefore excite no curiofity. Of his favourite, The Two Springs, the fiction is unnatural, and the moral inconfequential. In his Tales there is too much. coarseness, with two little care of language, and not fufficient rapidity of narration.

His great work is his Chace, which he undertook in his maturer age, when his ear was improved to the approbation of blank verfe, of which however his two first lines gave a bad fpecimen. To this poem praise cannot be totally denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to write with great intelligence of his fubject, which is the first requifite to excellence; and though it is impoffible to intereft the common readers of verfe in the dangers or pleafures of the chace, he has done all that tranfition and variety could eafily effect; and has with great propriety enlarged his plan by the modes of hunting used in other countries.

With ftill lefs judgement did he chufe blank verse as the vehicle of Rural Sports. If blank verse be not tumid and gorgeous, it is crippled profe; and familiar images in laboured language have nothing to recommend them but abfurd novelty, which, wanting the attractions of Nature, cannot please long. One excellence of the Splendid Shilling is, that it is fhort, Disguise can gratify no longer than it deceives.

SAVAGE.

SAVA G E.

IT has been obferved in all ages, that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the fplendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the fummits of human life, have not often given any just occafion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower ftation; whether it be that apparent fuperiority incites great defigns, and great defigns are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is mifery, and the misfortunes of thofe, whofe eminence drew upon them an univerfal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally obferved, and have in reality been only more confpicuous than thofe of others, not more frequent, or more severe.

That affluence and power, advantages extrinfick and adventitious, and therefore easily separable from those by whom they are poffeffed, fhould very often flatter the mind with expectations of felicity which

they

they cannot give, raifes no aftonifhment; but it feems rational to hope, that intellectual greatness fhould produce better effects; that minds qualified for great attainments fhould firft endeavour their own benefit; and that they, who are moft able to teach others the way to happiness, should with most certainty follow it themselves.

But this expectation, however plausible, has been very frequently difappointed. The heroes of literary as well as civil history have been very often no lefs remarkable for what they have fuffered, than for what they have atchieved; and volumes have been written only to enumerate the miferies of the learned, and relate their unhappy lives, and untimely deaths.

To these mournful narratives, I am about to add the Life of Richard Savage, a man whole writings entitle him to an eminent rank in the claffes of learning, and whofe misfortunes claim a degree of compaffion, not always due to the unhappy, as they were often the confequences of the crimes of others, rather than his own.

In the year 1697, Anne Countess of Macclesfield, having lived fome time upon very uneafy terms with her husband, thought a public confeffion of adultery the moft obvious and expeditious method of obtaining her liberty; and therefore declared, that the child, with which fhe was then great, was begotten by the Earl Rivers. This, as may be imagined, made her husband no less defirous of a separation than herfelf, and he profecuted his defign in the most effectual manner; for he applied not to the ecclefiaftical courts for a divorce, but to the parliament for an act, by which his marriage might be

« הקודםהמשך »