ful 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 fuch as require no great depth of thought or energy of expreffion. His Fables are generally stale, 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 Chafe, which he undertook in his maturer age, when his ear was improved to the approba tion of blank verfe, of which however his two first lines give a bad fpecimen.

To

To this poem praise cannot be totally denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to write with great intelligence of his fubject, which is the firft requifite to excellence; and though it is impoffible to intereft the common readers of verfe in the dangers or pleasures of the chase, he has done all that tranfition and variety could eafily effect; and has, with great propriety, enlarged his plan by the modes of hunting ufed in other countries.

With fti lefs judgement did he chufe 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 lan

guage have nothing to recommend

them

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.

THOMSON.

AMES THOMSON, the son of

JAMES

a minifter well efteemed for his piety and diligence, was born September 7, 1700, at Ednam, in the fhire of Roxburgh, of which his father was paftor. His mother, whofe name was Hume, inherited as co heirefs a portion of a fmall eftate. The revenue of a parish in Scotland is feldom large; and it was probably in commiferation of the difficulty with which Mr. Thomson fupported his family, having nine children,