eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majes- | that Gascoigne, a writer of the sixteenth century,

tic for ornament: to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave mirror the sideral hemisphere.

As much of Waller's reputation was owing to the softness and smoothness of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minute particulars to which a versifier must attend.

He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers who were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth had attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he might have studied with advantage the poem of Davies, which, though merely philosophical, yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified.

*

warns the young poet against affecting it: Shakspeare, in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," is supposed to ridicule it; and in another play the sonnet of Holofernes fully displays it.

He borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from the old mythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of ancient poets; the deities which they introduced so frequently, were considered as realities, so far as to be received by the imagination, whatever sober reason might even then determine. But of these images time has tarnished the splendour. A fiction, not only detected but despised, can never afford a solid basis to any position, though sometimes it may furnish a transient allusion, or slight illustration. No modern monarch can be much exalted by hearing that, as Hercules had his club, he has his navy.

But he was rather smooth than strong of the full resounding line, which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The But of the praise of Waller, though much may critical decision has given the praise of strength be taken away, much will remain; for it cannot to Denham, and of sweetness to Waller. be denied, that he added something to our eleHis excellence of versification has some abate-gance of diction, and something to our propriety ments. He uses the expletive do very frequently; and, though he lived to see it almost universally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it in his last compositions than in his first. Praise had given him confidence; and finding the world satisfied, he satisfied himself.

His rhymes are sometimes weak words: so is found to make the rhyme twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his book.

His double rhymes, in heroic verse, have been censured by Mrs. Phillips, who was his rival in the translation of Corneille's "Pompey;" and more faults might be found, were not the inquiry below attention.

He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as wareth, affecteth; and sometimes retains the final syllable of the preterite, as amazed, supposed, of which I know not whether it is not to the detriment of our language that we have totally rejected them.

Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: of an Alexandrine he has given no example.

The general character of his poetry is elegance and gayety. He is never pathetic, and very rarely sublime. He seems neither to have had a mind much elevated by nature, nor amplified by learning. His thoughts are such as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life would easily supply. They had however then, perhaps, that grace of novelty, which they are now often supposed to want by those who, having already found them in later books, do not know or inquire who produced them first. This treatment is unjust. Let not the original author lose by his imitators.

Praise, however, should be due before it is given. The author of Waller's Life ascribes to him the first practice of what Erythræus and some late critics call alliteration, of using in the same verse many words beginning with the same letter. But this knack, whatever be its value, was so frequent among early writers,

* Sir John Davies, entitled, "Nosce teipsum. This oracle expounded in two Elegies: I. Of Humane Knowledge; II. Of the Soule of Man and the Immortalitie thereof, 1599."-R.

of thought; and to him may be applied what
Tasso said, with equal spirit and justice, of him-
self and Guarini, when, having perused the
"Pastor Fido," he cried out, "If he had not read
'Aminta,' he had not excelled it."

As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versification from Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen of his work, which, after Mr. Hoole's translation, will perhaps not be soon reprinted. By knowing the state in which Waller found our poetry, the reader may judge how much he improved it.

I.

Through forests thicke among the shadie treene,
Erminia's steed (this while) his mistresse bore
Her feeble hand the bridle raines forelore,
Halfe in a swoune she was for feare I weene;
To beare her through the desart woods unseene
But her flit courser spared nere the more,
Of her strong foes, that chased her through the plaine,
And still pursued, but still pursued in vaine.

II.

Like as the wearie hounds at last retire,
Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace,
When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire,
No art nor pains can rowse out of his place:
The Christian knights so full of shame and ire
Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace!

Yet still the fearfull Dame fled, swift as winde,
Nor euer staid, nor euer lookt behinde.

III.

Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she driued,
Withouten comfort, companie, or guide,
Her plaints and teares with euery thought reuiued,
She heard and saw her greefes, but naught beside.
But when the sunne his burning chariot diued
In Thetis waue, and wearie teame vntide,

On lordans sandie banks her course she staid,
At last, there downe she light, and down she laid.

IV.

Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings;
This was her diet that vnhappy night:

But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings
To ease the greefes of discontented wight)
Spred foorth his tender, soft, and nimble wings,
In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright:
And loue, his mother, and the graces kept
Strong watch and warde, while this faire Ladie slept.

POMFRET.

OF Mr. JOHN POMFRET nothing is known but from a slight and confused account prefixed to his poems by a nameless friend; who relates, that he was son of the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, rector of Luton, in Bedfordshire; that he was bred at Cambridge; entered into orders, and was rector of Malden, in Bedfordshire; and might have risen in the church, but that, when he applied to Dr. Compton, bishop of London, for institution to a living of considerable value, to which he had been presented, he found a troublesome obstruction raised by a malicious interpretation of some passage in his "Choice ;" from which it was inferred, that he considered happiness as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of a wife.

This reproach was easily obliterated; for it had happened to Pomfret as to almost all other men who plan schemes of life; he had departed from his purpose, and was then married.

fatal consequence: the delay constrained his attendance in London, where he caught the small-pox, and died in 1703, in the thirty-sixth year of his age.

He published his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that class of readers, who, without vanity or criticism, seek only their own amusement.

His "Choice" exhibits a system of life adapted to common notions and equal to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity, without exclusion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no composition in our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's "Choice."

In his other poems there is an easy volubility, the pleasure of smooth metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not oppressed with ponderous, or entangled with intricate, sentiment. He pleases many; and he who pleases many must

The malice of his enemies had, however, a very | have some species of merit.

DORSET.

Or the EARL OF DORSET the character has as they grew warmer, Sedley stood forth naked, been drawn so largely and so elegantly by Prior, and harangued the populace in such profane lan to whom he was familiarly known, that nothing guage, that the public indignation was awakencan be added by a casual hand; and, as its au-ed; the crowd attempted to force the door, and, thor is so generally read, it would be useless officiousness to transcribe it.

being repulsed, drove in the performers with stones, and broke the windows of the house.

CHARLES SACKVILLE was born January 24, For this misdemeanour they were indicted, 1637. Having been educated under a private and Sedley was fined five hundred pounds: what tutor, he travelled into Italy, and returned a was the sentence of the others is not known. little before the Restoration. He was chosen Sedley employed Killigrew and another to prointo the first parliament that was called, for East cure a remission from the King; but (mark the Grinstead, in Sussex, and soon became a favour-friendship of the dissolute!) they begged the ite of Charles the Second; but undertook no fine for themselves, and exacted it to the last public employment, being too eager of the riotous and licentious pleasures which young men of high rank, who aspired to be thought wits, at that time imagined themselves entitled to indulge.

groat.

In 1665, Lord Buckhurst attended the Duke of York as a volunteer in the Dutch war; and was in the battle of June 3, when eighteen great Dutch ships were taken, fourteen others were destroyed, and Opdam, the admiral, who engaged the Duke, was blown up beside him, with all his

One of these frolics has, by the industry of Wood, come down to posterity. Sackville, who was then Lord Buckhurst, with Sir Charles Sed-crew. ley and Sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock, in Bow-street, by Covent-garden, and, going into the balcony, exposed themselves to the populace in very indecent postures. At last,

*He was of Queen's College there, and, by the Uni

versity register, appears to have taken his bachelor's cegree in 1694, and his master's, 1698. H.-His father was of Trinity.--C.

On the day before the battle, he is said to have composed the celebrated song, "To all you ladies now at land," with equal tranquillity of mind and promptitude of wit. Seldom any splendid story is wholly true. I have heard, from the late Earl of Orrery, who was likely to have good hereditary intelligence, that Lord Buckhurst had been a week employed upon it, and only retouched or finished it on the memor

able evening. But even this, whatever it may | accession, made him lord-chamberlain of the subtract from his facility, leaves him his courage. He was soon after made a gentleman of the bed-chamber, and sent on short embassies to France.

In 1674, the estate of his uncle, James Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, came to him by its owner's death, and the title was conferred on him the year after. In 1677, he became, by the death of his father, Earl of Dorset, and inherited the estate of his family.

household, and gave him afterwards the garter. He happened to be among those that were tossed with the King in an open boat sixteen hours, in very rough and cold weather, on the coast of Holland. His health afterwards declined; and, on January 19, 1705-6, he died at Bath.

He was a man whose elegance and judgment were universally confessed, and whose bounty to the learned and witty was generally known. To the indulgent affection of the public, Lord In 1684, having buried his first wife of the Rochester bore ample testimony in this remarkfamily of Bagot, who left him no child, he mar-"I know not how it is, but Lord Buckhurst may ried a daughter of the Earl of Northampton, do what he will, yet is never in the wrong." celebrated both for beauty and understanding. He received some favourable notice from King James; but soon found it necessary to oppose the violence of his innovations, and, with some other lords, appeared in Westminster Hall to countenance the bishops at their trial.

As enormities grew every day less supportable, he found it necessary to concur in the Revolution. He was one of those lords who sat every day in council to preserve the public peace, after the King's departure; and, what is not the most illustrious action of his life, was employed to conduct the Princess Anne to Nottingham with a guard, such as might alarm the populace as they passed, with false apprehensions of her danger. Whatever end may be designed, there is always something despicable in a trick.

He became, as may be easily supposed, a favourite of King William, who, the day after his

If such a man attempted poetry, we cannot wonder that his works were praised. Dryden, whom, if Prior tells truth, he distinguished by his beneficence, and who lavished his blandishments on those who are not known to have so well deserved them, undertaking to produce authors of our own country superior to those of antiquity, says, "I would instance your Lordship in satire, and Shakspeare in tragedy." Would it be imagined that, of this rival to antiquity, all the satires were little personal invectives, and that his longest composition was a song of eleven stanzas?

The blame, however, of this exaggerated praise falls on the encomiast, not upon the author; whose performances are, what they pretend to be, the effusions of a man of wit; gay, vigorous, and airy. His verses to Howard show great fertility of mind; and his Dorinda has been imitated by Pope.

STEPNEY.

GEORGE STEPNEY, descended from the Step-burgh; in 1699, to the King of Poland; in 1701 neys of Pendigrast, in Pembrokeshire, was born at Westminster, in 1663. Of his father's condition or fortune I have no account.* Having received the first part of his education at Westminster, where he passed six years in the College, he went at nineteen to Cambridge,† where he continued a friendship begun at school with Mr. Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax. They came to London together, and are said to have been invited into public life by the Earl of Dorset.

again to the Emperor; and in 1706, to the States-general. In 1697, he was made one of the commissioners of trade. His life was busy, and not long. He died in 1707; and is buried in Westminster Abbey, with this epitaph, which Jacob transcribed :

His qualifications recommended him to many foreign employments, so that his time seems to have been spent in negotiations. In 1692, he was sent envoy to the elector of Brandenburgh; in 1693, to the Imperial Court; in 1694, to the Elector of Saxony; in 1696, to the Electors of Mentz and Cologne, and the Congress at Francfort; in 1698, a second time to Branden

*It has been conjectured that our Poet was either son or grandson of Charles, third son of Sir John Stepney, the first baronet of that family. See Granger's History, vol. ii. p. 396, edit. 8vo. 1775. Mr. Cole says, the Poet's father was a grocer. Cole's MSS. in Brit. Mus.-C.

He was entered of Trinity College, and took his master's degree in 1689.-H.

:

H. S. E.
Georgius Stepneius, Armiger,

Vir

Ob Ingenii acumen,
Literarum Scientiam,
Morum Suavitatem,
Rerum Usum,

Virorum Amplissimorum Consuetudinem,
Lingua, Styli, ac Vite Elegantiam,
Præclara Officia cum Britanniæ tum Europæ
præstita,

Suâ ætate multum celebratus,
Apud posteros semper celebrandus;
Plurimas Legationes obiit

Eâ Fide, Diligentià, ac Felicitate,
Ut Augustissimorum Principum
Gulielmi et Annæ
Spem in illo repositam
Nunquam fefellerit,

Haud rarò superaverit.

Post longum honorum Curfum
Brevi Temporis Spatio confectum,
Cum Naturæ parum, Fame satis vixerat,

Animam ad altiora aspirantem placidè efflavit.

PHILIP S.