and inconftancy, with the common places of artificial courtship. They are commonly fmooth and eafy; but have little nature, and little fentiment. His imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not inelegant or unhappy. In the reign of Charles the Second began that adaptation, which has fince been yery frequent, of antient poetry to prefent times; and perhaps few will be found where the parallelifm is better preferved than in this. The verfification is indeed fometimes carelefs, but it is fometimes vigorous and weighty. The strongest effort of his Mufe is his poem upon Nothing. He is not the firft who has chofen this barren topick for the boaft of his fertility. There is a poem called Nihil in Latin by Pafferat, a poet and critick of the fixteenth century in France; who, in his own epitaph, expreffes his zeal for good poctry thus: -Molliter offa quiefcent Sint modo carminibus non onerata malis. His works are not common, and therefore I shall fubjoin his verfes. In examining this performance, Nothing must be confidered as having not only a negative but a kind of pofitive fignification; as I need not fear thieves, I have nothing, and nothing is a very powerful protector. In the first part of the fentence it is taken negatively; in the second it is taken pofitively, as an agent. In one of Boileau's lines it was a question, whether he should ufe à rien faire, or à ne rien faire; and the firft was preferred because it gave rien a fense in fome fort pofitive. Nothing can be a subject only only in its positive sense, and fuch a fenfe is given it in the firft line: Nothing, thou elder brother ev'n to fhade. In this line, I know not whether he does not allude Jam primum terram validis circumfpice clauftris. The positive fenfe is generally preferved with great skill through the whole poem; though fome. times, in a fubordinate fenfe, the negative nothing is injudiciously mingled. Pafferat confounds the two fenfes. Another of his moft vigorous pieces is his Lampoon on Sir Car Scroop, who, in a poem called The Praise of Satire, had fome lines like these *: He who can push into a midnight fray This was meant of Rochefter, whole buffoon conceit was, I fuppofe, a saying often mentioned, that every Man would be a Coward if he durft; and drew *I quote from memory. Dr. J. from from him thofe furious verfes; to which Scroop made in reply an epigram, ending with thefe lines: Thou can't hurt no man's fame with thy ill word; Of the fatire against Man, Rochester can only claim what remains when all Boileau's part is taken away. In all his works there is fpritelinefs and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind which ftudy might have carried to excellence. What more can be expected from a life fpent in oftentatious contempt of regularity, and ended before the abilities of many other men began to be displayed? Poema 'Poema Cl. V. JOANNIS PASSERATII, Regii in Academia Parifienfi Profefforis, Ad ornatiffimum virum ERRICUM MEMMIUM. Janus adeft, feftæ pofcunt fua dona Kalendæ, Ufque adeò ingenii noftri est exhaufta facultas, Aufoniæ indictum NIHIL eft Græcæque Camoenæ. Secra Socraticique gregis fuit ifta fcientia quondam, Pura liquefaciunt fimul, & patrimonia mifcent, Nec numeret Libycæ numerum qui callet arenæ : Vexerit & quemvis trans moeftas portitor undas, VOL. IX. P Diique |