1 has been compared to the rumbling of a wheel-barrow: he had been on the wrong fide, and therefore could not be a good poet. And this, perhaps, may be Mr. Philips's cafe. But I take generally the ignorance of his readers to be the occafion of their diflike. People that have formed their tafte upon the French writers can have no relifh for Philips they admire points and turns, and confequently have no judgement of what is great and majestick: he must look little in their eyes, when he foars fo high as to be almost out of their view. I cannot therefore allow any admirer of the French to be a judge of Blenheim, nor any who takes Bouhours for a compleat critick. He generally judges of the ancients by the moderns, and not the moderns by the ancients; he takes those pasfages of their own authors to be really fublime which come the nearest to it; he often calls that a noble and a great thought which is only a pretty and fine one, and has more inftances of the fublime out of Ovid de Triftibus, than he has out of all Virgil. I fhall I shall allow, therefore, only those to be judges of Philips, who make the ancients, and particularly Virgil, their standard. But before I enter on this fubject, I fhall confider what is particular in the style of Philips, and examine what ought to be the ftyle of heroick poetry; and next inquire how far he is come up to that ftyle, His ftyle is particular, because he lays afide rhyme, and writes in blank verfe, and ufes old words, and frequently poftpones the adjective to the fubftantive, and the fubftantive to the verb; and leaves out little particles, a, and the; her, and his; and uses frequent appofitions. Now let us examine, whether thefe alterations of ftyle be conformable to the true fublime, *** WALSH WAL S H. W ILLIAM WALSH, the son of Jofeph Walsh, Efq. of Abberley in Worcestershire, was born in 1663, as appears from the account of Wood: who relates, that at the age of fifteen he became, in 1678, a gentleman commoner of Wadham College. He left the univerfity without a degree, and pursued his ftudies at London and at home; that he studied, in whatever place, is apparent from the effect; for he became, in Mr. Dryden's opinion, the beft critick in the nation. He was not, however, merely a critick or a fcholar, but a man of fashion, and, as Dennis remarks, oftentatioufly fplendid in his dress. He was likewife a member of parliament and a courtier, knight of the shire for his native county in feveral parliaments § in another the representative of Richmond in Yorkshire; and gentleman of the horse to Queen Anne, under the duke of Somerset. Some of his verfes fhew him to have been a zealous friend to the Revolution; but his political ardour did not abate his reverence or kindness for Dryden, to whom he gave a Differtation on Virgil's Paftorals, in which, however ftudied, he difcovers fome ignorance of the laws of French verfification. In 1705, he began to correfpond with Mr. Pope, in whom he difcovered very early the power of poetry. Their letters are written upon the pastoral comedy of the Italians, and those pastorals which Pope was then preparing to publish. The kindneffes which are first experienced are feldom forgotten. Pope always retained a grateful memory of Walfh's notice, and mentioned him in one of his latter pieces among thofe that had encouraged his juvenile ftudies. -Granville --Granville the polite, And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write. In his Effay on Criticism he had given him more fplendid praise and, in the opinion of his learned commentator, facrificed a little of his judgement to his gratitude. The time of his death I have not learned. It must have happened between 1707, when he wrote to Pope, and 1711, when Pope praised him in his Effay. The epitaph makes him forty-fix years old: if Wood's account be right, he died in 1709. He is known more by his familiarity with greater men, than by any thing done or written by himself. His works are not numerous. In profe he wrote Eugenia, a Defence of Women; which Dryden honoured with a Preface. Efculapius, or the Hofpital of Fools, published after his death. A collection of Letters and Poems, amorous and gallant, was published in the volumes 3 called |