SOMERVIL E.

F Mr. SOMERVILE's life I am not able to fay 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 first family in his county. He tells of himself that he was born near the Avon's banks. He was bred at Winchesterschool, 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 skilful and ufeful juftice of the peace.

Of the close of his life, thofe 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.

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"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 circumstances: the laft of these con"fiderations wrings my very foul to think on. For "a man of high fpirit, confcious of having (at "leaft in one production) generally pleafed the world, "to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are "low in every fenie; 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 estate is faid to be fifteen hundred a year, which by his death has 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 clafs, 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 fportfman and a man

of letters.

Somervile has tried many modes of poetry; and though perhaps he has not in any reached fuch ex-, cellence 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 verfes to Addison, the couplet which mentions Clio is written with the most exquifite delicacy of praife; it exhibits one of thofe happy ftrokes that T 4

are

are seldom attained. In his Odes to Marlborough there are beautiful lines; but in the fecond Ode he shews 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 coarfenefs, with too 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 give a bad fpecimen. 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 pleasures 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 ufed in other countries.

With fill less judgement did he chufe blank verfe as the vehicle of Rural Sports. If blank verfe 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. Difguife can gratify no longer than it deceives.

SAVAGE.

SAVAGE.

T 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 fummit of human life, have not often given any juft 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 fevere.

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

they cannot give, raises no aftonishment; 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, fhould with moft certainty follow it themselves.

But this expectation, however plaufible, has been very frequently difappointed. The heroes of literary as well as civil hiftory have been very often no less remarkable for what they have fuffered, than for what they have atchieved; and volumes have been written only to enumerate the miseries 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 whofe writings entitle him to an eminent rank in the claffes of learn

ing, and whose 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 most 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 lefs defirous of a feparation than herself, 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