⚫ticularizing your name in a book where I thought it too good to be inferted,' &c.

་

And in another place he says,

I fhould imagine the Dunciad meant you a real compliment, and to it has been thought by many who have afked to whom that paffage made that oblique panegyric. As to the notes, I am weary of telling a great truth, which is, that I am not the author of them,' &c.

To which Mr. Hill made this reply:

As to your oblique panegyric, I am not under fo blind an attachment to the goddefs I was devoted to in the Dunciad, but that I know it was a commendation; tho'a <dirtier one than I wished for; who am neither fond of ⚫ fome of the company in which I was lifted-the noble reward, for which I was to become a diver ;-the allegorical muddiness in which I was to try my skill;-nor the infti• tutor of the games you were fo kind to allow me a share 'in, &c.'

In 1731, he brought on Drury-lane ftage, his favourite Tragedy of Athelwold, which is highly finished, abounds with moral inftruction, forcible expreffion, and good fenfe. It is founded on the fame fubject with his tragedy of Elfrid, which he called, an unpruned wilderness of fancy, with < here and there a flower among the leaves; but without any fruit of judgment.'

He was a man fufceptible of love, in its fublimeft fenfe; as may be seen by his letters, and in a poetical description of that paffion, which he has given in his poem called, The Picture of Love; (from whence the following lines are taken)

No wild defire can this proud blifs bestow,

Souls must be match'd in heav'n, tho' mix'd below.

In 1735, he was concerned in a paper called the Prompter, calculated to inftruct the actors, and to reform theatri'cal amusements.

The fame year he formed a play chiefly founded on the Zara of Monfieur Voltaire; this performance is executed in a mafterly manner, and worthy the perufal of every Chriftian. It was firft éxhibited in York-buildings, where Mr. Bond, to whom Mr. Hill gave the profits arifing from the performance, filled the character of Lufignan, and put the audience in fear, left in reality he fhould die when he attempted

attempted only a mock death. Before the run of the play was over, he convinced them that their fears were not groundlefs, for he died, never more to die, and left his heirs to share the profits he could not carry with him.

The fame winter this play was brought on the ftage in Drury-lane, where the part of Zara was filled by Mrs. Cibber, at which time fhe first fhewed the public how the could excel in Tragedy,

The Poet, instead of taking the ufual advantages arifing from his copy-right of this Play, then worth one hundred guineas, compliments the bookfeller with it in the following letter to Mr. Chetwood.

́SIR,

I have an invincible objection, againft leaving you the ⚫ refufal of Zara, (which my nephew tells me you defire :) and that is, because it is certainly much more reasonable I fhould offer you the acceptance of it.

Please, therefore, to receive it as a prefent: for under the bookfellers' want of a law, as things now ftand, to fecure them in the property of their copies, it were a kind • of poetical felony to make you pay for a chance of being plundered without remedy. I am, Sir,

Westminster,
Nov. 8th, 1735.

your most humble fervant,
A. HILL.

In 1736, he brought on at the Theatre in Lincoln's-InnFields another Tragedy, called Alzira, originally wrote by the fame French author. These two plays have been deemed an improvement of the French ones, as was acknowledged by Voltaire himself.

In 1737, he published a poem, called, The Tears of the Mufes, compofed of general fatire, which fets the vices and follies of mankind in a proper light.

The year following he grew tired of the noise and hurry attendant on the inhabitants of London; and fettled at Plaiftow in Effex, where he lived to his own tafte, pursued his ftudies without interruption, and amufed himself at leifure hours with his wife and children, or his garden. Many experiments he made, and spent much time and money in order to bring to perfection the Art of making Pot-afh, bought with vaft fums from Ruffia, but the much hoped fruits of his toil died with the improver of this art.

In 1743, he published the Fanciad, an Heroic Poem.

In

In 1746, he published a poem on Faith; the following lines will discover his fentiments on that elevated fubject.

What then must be believ'd ?-Believe God kind,
To fear were to offend him. Fill thy heart
With his felt laws; and act the good he loves.
Rev'rence his power. Judge him but by his works:
Know him but in his mercies. Rev'rence too
The most mistaken schemes that mean his praise.
Rev'rence his pricfts-for ev'ry prieft is his-
Who finds him in his confcience.-

In 1747, he published the Art of Acting, a Poem.

The fame year his Tragedy, called Merope, was brought on the stage at Drury-lane. In his preface to this piece he fays, after very juftly cenfuring Voltaire for having reprefented the English as incapable of Tragedy,

To fuch provoking ftimulations I have owed the inducement to retouch, for Mr. Voltaire's ufe, the characters in his high boafted Merope; and I have done it on a plan as near his own as I could bring it with a fafe confcience, that is to say, without distaste to English audiences.

This piece, the laft he ever wrote, he dedicated to Lord Bolingbroke.-There is in it a melancholy thread of fatal prophecy of his own approaching diffolution.

Cover'd in fortune's fhade, I reft reclin'd;
My griefs all filent; and my joys refign'd.
With patient eye life's evening gloom furvey:
Nor fhake th' out-haft'ning fands; nor bid 'em ftay.
Yet, while from life my fetting profpects fly,

Fain wou'd my mind's weak offspring fhun to die.
Fain wou'd their hope fome light through time explore;
The name's kind pafport.,-when the man's no more.

Whilft this play was in rehearfal, an illness feized him; from the tormenting pains of which he had scarce an hour's intermiffion; and after making trial of all he thought could be of fervice to him in medicine, he had recourse to his native air of London, but was then paft all recovery, from what was believed to be an inflammation in the kidneys; of which his intenfe application to study might probably lay the foundation. When in town, he had the comfort being honoured with the vifits of the moft worthy and efteemed among his friends; but he was not permitted many weeks to taste that bleffing.

His Royal Highness the late Prince of Wales had the goodness to command the play of Merope to be per

formed

formed for the benefit of the Author, of which Mr. Hill juft lived fufficient time to exprefs his grateful acknowledgments. On the day before it was to be reprefented, he died, in the very minute of the earthquake, the 8th of February 1749, which he seemed fenfible of, though then deprived of utterance. Had he lived two days longer, he had been fixty-five years old. He endured a twelve month's torment of body, with a calmnefs that confeffed a fuperiority of foul! He was interred in the fame grave with her the most dear to him when living, in the great cloifter of Weftminfter-Abbey, near the Lord Godolphin's tomb.

In the later part of his life, Mr. Hill purpofed to make a general publication of his works, after he had finished fome pieces then in hand, which employed his time, till the stroke of death put an end to his worldly cares. Amongst the dramatic pieces, he left the Tragedy of the Roman Revenge, which deferves to be first mentioned; this the generous Lady Bab. Montague patronized and caused to be brought on the ftage at Bath, giving the profits to his family. This play a gentleman of eminence in the literary world, fays, is founded on the ftory from which Shakespear wrote his Julius Cæfar, but has not one line or fentiment of Shakefpear, and yet every line and fentiment in it would do credit to Shakespear." Nor is this gentlemen fingular in his opinion, witness the teftimony of the late Lord Bolingbroke, who in a letter to the Author has called it

one

of the nobleft drama's that our language or any age can • boast.'

Merlin in Love, a pantomime opera, Mr. Hill left in manuscript, which makes a part of the present publication, and feems calculated to please an English audience.

The Muses in Mourning, one of his pofthumous pieces, is a comic opera poetically whimfical, has fome fatire in it, whieh appears levelled at the stage, but not calculated fo much for representation as for clofet amusement.

The Snake in the Grafs, is another dramatic piece, rather more fatirical than the former.

Another performance he left, which is fingularly humorous, though fomething like the Chorus's of Shakespear; it was defigned as an interlude to Zara, which would make a variety, and turn it into a Tragi-comedy, but would rob the play of the majefty with which it appears as a Tragedy.

Thus

Thus have I mentioned all I know of the late Mr. Hill, and fhall take leave of the public with the words of Lord Clarendon, which with propriety cannot be more juftly applied than to Mr. Hill. He that lives fuch a life, needs be lefs anxious at how short warning it is taken from him.'

N. B. In 1753, were printed by Subfcription, 4 vols. of Mr. Hill's Poems and Letters; but thefe Dramatic Pieces were not included in that publication.

The Original, Nature, and Immortality of the Soul, a Poem. With an Introduction concerning Human Knowlege. Written by Sir John Davis, Attorney-General in Ireland, to King James the firft. 12mo. 2s. fewed. Browne.

ITS

T is obferved, in a fenfible preface to this work, that there is a natural love and fondness in Englishmen, for whatever was done in the reign of Queen Elizabeth: that we look upon her time as our golden age; and the great men who lived in it, as our greatest examples of wifdom, courage, integrity, and learning.

Among these alfo it is remarked, that Sir John Davis ftands not in the lowest degree of eminence; altho' as a Writer, it is certain that this piece must be confidered as his principal performance. It was firft printed, as we are informed, in the year 1599, and again in 1619; and repubHifhed by Tate in 1697 from whofe edition another was printed in the year 1714, as well as that which is here prefented to the public: the prefent being augmented, however, with fome account of the Author and his family. Tho', in this, there is little, if any thing, added to the particulars mentioned by Mrs. Cooper, Author of the Mufes Library; and, after her, by Cibber and Co. in their Lives of the Poets.

In this account we are told, that Sir John Davis was born at Chifgrove, in the parish of Tyfbury near Hindon in Wilts; and was the fon of a wealthy Tanner of that place, who fent him to Oxford; where, in the fifteenth year of his age, in Michaelmas Term, 1585, he became a Commoner of Queen's College. Having, by his excellent natural pafts, and the help of a Tutor, laid a good foundation of academical learning, and taken the degree ⚫ of Batchelor of Arts; he was removed to the MiddleTemple, and applied himself to the ftudy of the Common Law; but being a paffionate young man, he was fome⚫ time after expelled that fociety for beating a Gentleman at 5 • dinner