(1732) a very beautiful and fplendid edition of his works, in which he omitted what he disapproved, and enlarged what feemed deficient.

He now went to Court, and was kindly received by queen Caroline; to whom and to the princess Anne he presented his works, with verfes on the blank leaves, with which he concluded his poetical labours.

He died in Hanover-fquare, Jan. 30, 1735, having a few days before buried his wife, the lady Anne Villiers, widow to Mr. Thynne, by whom he had four daughters, but no fon.

Writers commonly derive their reputation from their works; but there are works which owe their reputation to the character of the writer. The publick fometimes has its favourites, whom it rewards for one fpecies of excellence with the honours due to another. From him whom we reverence for his beneficence we do not willingly withhold the praise of genius; a man of exalted merit becomes at once an accomplished writer, as

a beauty finds no great difficulty in paffing for a wit.

Granville was a man illustrious by his birth, and therefore attracted notice: fince he is by Pope ftyled "the polite," he must be fuppofed elegant in his manners, and generally loved he was in times of conteft and turbulence fteady to his party, and obtained that efteem which is always conferred upon firmnefs and confiftency. With those advantages, having learned the art of verfifying, 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 praise already received will be thought fufficient; for his works do not fhew him to have had much comprehension from nature, or illumination from learning. He feems to have had no ambition above the imitation of Waller, of whom he has copied the faults, and very little more. He is for ever amusing himself with the puerilities of mythology; his King is Jupiter, who, if the Queen brings no children, has a barren Juno.

The

The Queen is compounded of Juno, Venus, and Minerva. His poem on the dutchess of Grafton's law-fuit, after having rattled a while with Juno and Pallas, Mars and Alcides, Caffiope, Niobe, and the Propetides, Hercules, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, at last 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 effort; but they are commonly feeble and unaffecting, or forced and extravagant.

His little pieces are feldom either spritely 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 praise.

The Progress of Beauty feems one of his most elaborate pieces, and is not deficient in fplendor and gaiety; but the merit of original thought is wanting. Its highest praise is the VOL. III.

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fpirit

fpirit with which he celebrates king James's confort, when she was a queen no longer.

The Essay on unnatural Flights in Poetry is not inelegant nor injudicious, and has 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 didactic poem novelty is to be expected only in the ornaments and illuftrations. His poetical precepts are accompanied with agreeable and instructive notes.

The Masque 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 are lively, though not very correct. This is, I think, far the beft of his works; for if it has many faults, it has likewife paffages which are at least pretty, though they do not rife to any high degree of excellence.

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YAL DE N.

T

HOMAS YALDEN, the fixth fon of Mr. John Yalden of Suffex, was born in the city of Exeter in 1671. Having been educated in the grammar-school belonging to Magdalen College in Oxford, he was in 1690, at the age of nineteen, admitted commoner of Magdalen Hall, under the tuition of Jofiah Pullen, a man whose name is ftill remembered in the university. He became next year one of the scholars of Magdalen College, where he was distinguished by a lucky accident.

It was his turn, one day, to pronounce a declamation; and Dr. Hough, the prefident, happening to attend, thought the composition too good to be the speaker's. Some time after, the doctor finding him a little irregularly bufy. in the library, set him an exercise for punishment;

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