must be supposed elegant in his manners, and generally loved: he was in times of conteft and turbulence steady to his party, and obtained that esteem which is always conferred upon firmness and confiftency. With thofe advantages, having learned the art of verfify ing, he declared himself a poet; and his claim to the laurel was allowed. But by a critick of a later generation, who takes up his book without any favourable prejudices, the praife already received will be thought fufficient; for his works do not fhew him to have had much comprehenfion from nature, or illumination from learning. He feems to have had no ambition above the imitation of Waller, of whom he has co pied the faults, and very little more. He is for ever amufing himfelf with the puerilities of mythology; his King is Jupiter, who, if the Queen brings no children, has a barren Juno. The Queen is compounded of Juno, Venus, and Minerva. His poem on the dutchefs of Grafton's law-fuit, after having rattled awhile with Juno and Pallas, Mars and Alcides, Caffiope, Niobe, and the Propetides,, Hercules, Minos, and, Rhada manthus, at laft concludes its folly with profaneness. His verfes to Mira, which are most frequently mentioned, have little in them of either art or nature, of the fentiments of a lover, or the language of a poet : there may be found, now-and-then, a happier B 3 happier effort; but they are commonly feeble and unaffecting, or forced and ex travagant. His little pieces are feldom either fpritely or elegant, either keen or weighty. They are trifles written by idleness, and published by vanity. But his Prologues and Epilogues have a juft claim to praife. The Progrefs of Beauty feems one of his moft elaborate pieces, and is not deficient in fplendor and gaiety; but the merit of original thought is wantirg. Its higheft praife is the fpirit with which he celebrates king James's confort, when she was a queen no longer. The Effay on unnatural Flights in Poetry is not inelegant nor injudicious, and has fome fomething of vigour beyond moft of his other performances: his precepts are juft, and his cautions proper; they are indeed not new, but in a didactick poem novelty is to be expected only in the or naments and illuftrations. His poetical precepts are accompanied with agreeable and inftructive notes, which ought not to have been omitted in this edition.. The Mafque of Peleus and Thetis has here and there a pretty line; but it is not always melodious, and the conclufion is wretched. In his British Enchanters he has bidden defiance to all chronology, by confounding the inconfiftent manners of different ages; but the dialogue has often the air of Dryden's rhyming plays; and the fongs B4 |