ful mother, like the mother of the gods, feems to have produced a numerous offspring, all of different though uncommon faculties. Of the living, neither their modesty nor the humour of the prefent age permits me to speak of the dead, I may fay fomething : He One of them had made the greatest progress in the study of the law of nature and nations of any one I know. He had perfectly mastered, and even improved, the notions of Grotius, and the more refined ones of Puffendorff. could refute Hobbes, with as mucn folidity as fome of greater name, and expose him with as much wit as Echard. That noble study, which requires the greatest reach of reafon and nicety of diftinction, was not at all difficult to him. 'Twas a national lofs to be deprived of one who understood a fcience fo neceffary, and yet fo unknown in England. I fhall add only, he had the fame honefty and fincerity as the perfon I write of, but more heat: the former was more inclined to argue, the latter to divert: one employed his reafon more; the other his imagination: the former liad been well qualified for thofe pofts, which the modefty of the latter made him refufe. His other dead brother brother would have been an ornament to the college of which he was a member. He had a genius either for poetry or oratory; and, though very young, compofed feveral very agreeable pieces. In all probability he would have wrote as finely, as his brother did nobly. He might have been the Waller, as the other was the Milton of his time. The one might celebrate Marlborough, the other his beautiful offfpring. This had not been fo fit to defcribe the actions of heroes as the virtues of private men. In a word, he had been fitter for my place, and while his brother was writing upon the greatest men that any age ever produced, in a ftyle equal to them, he might have ferved as a panegyrift on him. This is all I think neceffary to fay of his family. I fhall proceed to himself and his writings; which I fhall first treat of, because I know they are cenfured by fome out of envy, and more out of ignorance. The Splendid Shilling, which is far the leaft confiderable, has the more general reputation, and perhaps hinders the character of the rest. The ftyle agreed fo well with the burlesque, that the ignorant thought it could become nothing nothing else. Every body is pleased with that work. But to judge rightly of the other, requires a perfect mastery of poetry and criticifi, a juft contempt of the little turns and witticifms now in vogue, and, above all, a perfect understanding of poetical diction and defcription. All that have any tafte of poetry will agree, that the great burlefque is much to be preferred. to the low. It is much easier to make a great thing appear little, than a little one great: Cotton and others of a very low genius have done the former; but Philips, Garth, and Boileau, only the latter. A picture in miniature is every painter's talent; but a piece for a cupola, where all the figures are enlarged, yet proportioned to the eye, requires a mafter's hand. It muft ftill be more acceptable than the low burlefque, because the images of the latter are mean and filthy, and the language itself entirely unknown to all men of good breeding. The ftyle of Billingfgate would not make a very agreeable figure at St. James's. A gentleman would take but little pleasure in language, which he would think it hard to be accosted in, ог or in reading words which he could not pronounce without blufhing. The lofty burlefque is the more to be admired, becaufe, to write it, the author must be mafter of two of the most different talents in nature. A talent to find out and expose what is ridiculous, is very different from that which is to raife and elevate. We must read Virgil and Milton for the one, and Horace and Hudibras for the other. We know that the authors of excellent comedies have often failed in the grave ftyle, and the tragedian as often in comedy. Admiration and Laughter are of fuch opposite na tures, that they are feldom created by the fame perfon. The man of mirth is always obferving the follies and weakneffes; the ferious writer, the virtues or crimes of mankind; one is pleased with contemplating a beau, the other a hero: Even from the fame object they would draw different ideas: Achilles would appear in very different lights to Therfites and Alexander. The one would admire the courage and greatness of his foul; the other, would ridicule the vanity and rafhnefs of his temper. As the fatyrift says to Hanibal: -I curre per Alpes Ut pueris placeas, & declamatio fias. The The contrariety of style to the subje& pleases the more strongly, because it is more surprising; the expectation of the reader is pleasantly deceived, who expects an humble ftyle from the fubject, or a great subject from the style. It pleases the more univerfally, because it is agreeable to the tafte both of the grave and the merry; but more particularly fo to those who have a relish of the best writers, and the nobleft fort of poetry. I shall produce only one passage . out of this poet, which is the misfortune of his Galligaskins: My Galligaskins, which have long withstood By time fubdued (what will not time fubdue!) This is admirably pathetical, and fhews very well the viciffitudes of fublunary things. The reft goes on to a prodigious height; and a man in Greenland could hardly have made a more pathetick and terrible complaint. Is it not furprising that the fubject fhould be fo mean, and the verfe fo pompous; that the least things. in his poetry, as in a microscope, should grow, great and formidable to the eye; especially confidering that, not understanding French, he had no model for his ftyle? that he fhould |