having read the Gulftonian Lectures in Anatomy, he began to give, for the Cronian Lecture, a hiftory of the revival of Learning, from which he foon defifted; and, in converfation, he very eagerly forced himself into notice by an ambitious oftentation of elegance and literature.

His Difcourfe on the Dyfentery (1764) was confidered as a very confpicuous fpecimen of Latinity, which entitled him to the fame height of place among the scholars as he poffeffed before among the wits; and he might perhaps have rifen to a greater elevation of character, but that his ftudies were ended with his life, by a putrid fever, June 23, 1770, in the forty-ninth year of his age.

AKENSIDE is to be confidered as a didactick and lyrick poet. His great work is the Pleafures of Imagination; a performance which, publifhed, as it was, at the age of twenty-three, raifed expectations, which

were not afterwards very amply fatisfied. It has undoubtedly a just claim to very particular notice, as an example of great felicity of genius, and uncommon amplitude of acquifitions, of a young mind ftored with images, and much exercifed in combining and comparing them,

With the philofophical or religious tenets of the author I have nothing to do; my business is with his poetry. The fubject is well-chofen, as it includes all images that can strike or pleafe, and thus comprises every fpecies of poetical delight. The only difficulty is in the choice of examples and illuftrations, and it is not eafy in fuch exuberance of matter to find the middle point between penury and fatiety. The parts feem artificially difpofed, with fufficient coherence, so as that they cannot change their places without injury to the general defign.

His images are displayed with fuch luxuriance of expreffion, that they are hidden, like Butler's Moon, by a Veil of Light; they are forms fantastically loft under fuperfluity of drefs. Pars minima eft ipfa Puella fui. The

words

words are multiplied till the fenfe is hardly perceived; attention deferts the mind, and fettles in the ear. The reader wanders

through the gay diffufion, fometimes amazed, and fometimes delighted; but, after many turnings in the flowery labyrinth, comes out as he went in. He remarked little, and laid hold on nothing.

to any

To his verfification juftice requires that praise should not be denied. In the general fabrication of his lines he is perhaps fuperior other writer of blank verfe; his flow is smooth, and his paufes are musical; but the concatenation of his verfes is commonly too long continued, and the full close does not recur with fufficient frequency. The sense is carried on through a long intertexture of complicated clauses, and as nothing is diftinguished, nothing is remembered.

The exemption which blank verfe affords from the neceffity of clofing the fenfe with the couplet, betrays luxuriant and active minds into fuch indulgence, that they pilé jmage upon image, ornament upon ornament, and are not eafily perfuaded to close

the

the fenfe at all. Blank verfe will therefore,

I fear, be too often found in defcription exuberant, in argument loquacious, and in narration tiresome.

not common.

His diction is certainly fo far poetical as it is not profaick, and fo far valuable as it is He is to be commended as having fewer artifices of difgust than most of his brethren of the blank fong. He rarely either recalls old phrases or twifts his metre into harsh inverfions. The fenfe however of his words is ftrained; when he views the Ganges from Alpine heights; that is, from mountains like the Alps. And the pedant furely intrudes, but when was blank verfe without pedantry? when he tells how Planets abfolve the flated round of Time.

It is generally known to the readers of poetry that he intended to revife and augment this work, but died before he had completed his defign. The reformed work as he left it, and the addition which he had made, are very properly retained in the late collection. He feems to have fomewhat contracted his diffufion; but I know not whether he has

gained in closeness what he has lost in fplen, dor. In the additional book, the Tale of Solon is too long.

His other poems are now to be confidered; but a fhort confideration will dispatch them. It is not eafy to guess why he ad dicted himself so diligently to lyrick poetry, having neither the ease and airiness of the lighter, nor the vehemence and elevation of the grander ode. When he lays his ill-fated hand upon his harp, his former powers feem to desert him; he has no longer his luxuriance of expreffion, nor variety of images. His thoughts are cold, and his words inelegant. Yet fuch was his love of lyricks, that, having written with great vigour and poignancy his Epifle to Curio, he transformed it afterwards into an ode difgraceful only to its author.

Of his odes nothing favourable can be faid; the fentiments commonly want force, nature, or novelty; the diction is fometimes harsh and uncouth, the ftanzas ill-conftructed and unpleasant, and the rhymes diffonant, or unfkilfully difpofed, too diftant from each

3

other,