Surely no blame can fall upon the nymph who rejected a swain of so little meaning.

His verses are not rugged, but they have no fweetnefs; they never glide in a stream of melody. Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten fyllables elegiac, it is difficult to tell. The character of the Elegy is gentleness and tenuity; but this stanza has been pronounced by Dryden, whose knowlege of English metre was not inconfiderable, to be the most magnificent of all the meafures which our language affords.

SOMER

SOMERVIL E.

F Mr. SOMERVILE's life I am not able to fay any thing that can fatisfy curiofity.

He was a gentleman whofe eftate was in Warwickfhire; his house, where he was born in 1692, is called Edfton, a feat inherited from a long line of ancestors; for he was faid to be of the first family in his county. He tells of himfelf, that he was born near the Avon's banks. He was bred at Winchefter-school, and was elected fellow of New College. It does not appear that in the places of his education, he exhibited any uncommon proofs of genius or literature. His powers were firft difplayed in the country, where he was diftinguished as a poet, a gentleman, and a skilful and ufeful Justice of the Peace.

"Of the clofe of his life, thofe whom his poems have delighted will read with pain the following account, copied from the Letters of his friend Shenftone, by whom he was too much refembled.

"Our old friend Somervile is dead! I did not "imagine I could have been fo forry as I find myfelf VOL. III

R

оп

"on this occafion.-Sublatum quærimus. I can now "excufe all his foibles; impute them to age, and to "diftrefs of circumstances: the last of these confidera

"tions wrings my very foul to think on. For a man "of high fpirit, conscious of having (at least in one "production) generally pleafed the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense; to be forced to drink himself into pains "of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the "mind, is a mifery."-He died July 19, 1742, and was buried at Wotton, near Henley on Arden.

His diftreffes need not be much pitied: his eftate is faid to be fifteen hundred a year, which by his death has devolved to lord Somervile of Scotland. His mother indeed, who lived till ninety, had a jointure of fix hundred.

It is with regret that I find myfelf not better enabled to exhibit memorials of a writer, who at least must be allowed to have fet a good example to men of his own class, by devoting part of his time to elegant knowlege; and who has fhewn, by the fubjects which his poetry has adorned, that it is practicable to be at once a fkilful sportsman and a man of letters.

Somervile has tried many modes of poetry; and though perhaps he has not in any reached fuch excellence as to raise much envy, it may commonly be faid at least that he writes very well for a gentleman. His ferious pieces are fometimes elevated, and his trifles are fometimes elegant. In his verses to Addison, the couplet which mentions Clio is written with the most exquifite delicacy of praife; it exhibits one of those happy ftrokes that are seldom attained. In his Odes to Marlborough there are beautiful lines; but in the fecond

Ode he fhews that he knew little of his hero, when he talks of his private virtues. His fubjects are commonly fuch as require no great depth of thought or energy of expreffion. His Fables are generally ftale, and therefore excite no curiofity. Of his favourite, The Two Springs, the fiction is unnatural, and the moral inconfequential. In his Tales there is too much coarseness, with too little care of language, and not fufficient rapidity of narration.

His great work is his Chace, which he undertook in his maturer age, when his ear was improved to the approbation of blank verfe, of which however his two first lines give a bad fpecimen. To this poem praise cannot be totally denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to write with great intelligence of his fubject, which is the first requifite to excellence; and though it is impoffible to intereft the common readers of verfe in the dangers or pleasures of the chace, he has done all that transition and variety could easily effect; and has with great propriety, enlarged his plan by the modes of hunting used in other countries.

With still lefs judgement did he chuse blank verfe as the vehicle of Rural Sports. If blank verfe be not tumid and gorgeous, it is crippled profe; and familiar images in laboured language have nothing to recommend them but abfurd novelty, which, wanting the attractions of Nature, cannot please long. One excellence of the Splendid Shilling is, that it is fhort. Difguife can gratify no longer than it deceives.

SAVAGE.

I

T has been obferved in all ages, that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happinefs; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the fummits of human life, have not often given any juft occafion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower ftation : whether it be that apparent fuperiority incites great defigns, and great defigns are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is mifery, and the misfortunes of those, whofe eminence drew upon them an univerfal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality been only more confpicuous than those of others, not more frequent, or more fevere.

That affluence and power, advantages extrinfic and adventitious, and therefore eafily separable from those by whom they are poffeffed, fhould very often flatter

the