publick notice, and to have been distinguished by those whose friendship prejudiced mankind at that time in favour of the man on whom they were beftowed; for he was the companion. of Cobham, Lyttleton, and Chesterfield. He is faid to have divided his life between pleasure and books; in his retirement forgetting the town, and in his gaiety lofing the student. Of his literary hours all the effects are here exhibited, of which the Elegies were written very early, and the Prologue not long before his death.

In 1741, he was chofen into parliament. for Truro in Cornwall, probably one of thofe who were elected by the Prince's influence; and died next year in June at Stowe, the famous feat of the lord Cobham. His mistress long outlived him, and in 1779 died unmarried. The character which her lover bequeathed her was, indeed, not likely to attract courtship.

The Elegies were published after his death; and while the writer's name was remembered with fondnefs, they were read with a refolution to admire them. The recommendatory preface of the editor, who was then believed, and is E 3

now

now affirmed by Dr. Maty, to be the earl of Chesterfield, raised strong prejudices in their favour.

But of the prefacer, whoever he was, it may be reafonably fufpected that he never read the poems; for he profcffes to value them for a very high fpecies of excellence, and recommends them as the genuine effufions of the mind, which expreffes a real paffion in the language of nature, But the truth is, thefe elegies have neither paffion, nature, nor manners. Where there is fiction, there is no pasfion; he that describes himself as a shepherd, and his Neæra or Delia, as a fhepherdefs, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no paffion. He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery deferves to lose her; for fhe may with good reafon fufpect his fincerity. Hammond has few fentiments drawn from nature, and few images from modern life. He produces nothing but frigid pedantry. It would be hard to find in all his productions three ftanzas that deserve to be remembered.

Like other lovers, he threatens the lady with dyirg; and what then fhall follow?

Wilt thou in tears thy lover's corse attend;
With eyes averted light the folemn pyre,
Till all around the doleful flames afcend,
Then, flowly finking, by degrees expire?
To footh the hovering foul be thine the care,
With plaintive cries to lead the mournful band.
In fable weeds the golden vase to bear,

And cull my aflies with thy trembling hand:
Panchaia's odours be their coftly feast,

And all the pride of Afia's fragrant year, Give them the treasures of the farthest East,

And, what is still more precious, give thy tear.

Surely no blame can fall upon a nymph who rejected a swain of fo little meaning.

His verses are not rugged, but they have no sweetness; they never glide in a stream of melody. Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten fyllables elegiac, it is difficult to tell. The character of the Elegy is gentleness and tenuity; but this stanza has been pronounced by Dryden, whofe knowlege of English metre was not inconfiderable, to be the most magnificent of all the measures which our language affords.

SOMERVIL E.

Ο

F Mr. SOMERVILE's life I am not

able to fay any thing that can fatisfy curiofity.

He was a gentleman whose estate was in Warwickshire; 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 first family in his county. He tells of himself, that he was born near the Avon's banks. He was bred at Winchester-school, 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 first difplayed in the country, where he was diftinguished

guished as a poet, a gentleman, and a skilful and useful juftice of the Peace.

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

"Our old friend Somervile is dead! I “did not imagine I could have been so sorry "as I find myself on this occafion.-Sublatum

แ

quærimus. I can now excufe all his foibles; impute them to age, and to diftrefs of circumftances; the last of these confiderations "wrings my very foul to think on. For a

man of high spirit, conscious of having (at

"least in one production) generally pleased the "world, to be plagued and threatened by "wretches that are low in every sense; 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."—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 be fifteen hundred a year, which by his death has devolved to lord Somervile of Scotland.