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ILBERT WEST is one of the writers of whom I regret my inability to give a fufficient account; the intelligence which my enquiries have obtained is general and scanty.

He was the son of the reverend Dr. Weft; perhaps him who published Pindar at Oxford about the beginning of this century. His mother was fifter to Sir Richard Temple, afterwards lord Cobham. His father, purpofing to educate him for the Church, fent him first to Eton, and afterwards to Oxford; but he was feduced to a more airy mode of life, by a commiffion in a troop of horse procured him by his uncle.

He

He continued fome time in the army; though it is reasonable to fuppofe that he never funk into a mere foldier, nor ever loft the love or much neglected the pursuit of learning; and afterwards, finding himself more inclined to civil employment, he laid down his commiffion, and engaged in business under the lord Townshend, then fecretary of state, with whom he attended the king to Hanover.

His adherence to lord Townshend ended in nothing but a nomination (May 1729) to be clerk-extraordinary of the Privy Council, which produced no immediate profit; for it only placed him in a state of expectation and right of fucceffion, and it was very long be fore a vacancy admitted him to profit.

Soon afterwards he married, and fettled himself in a very pleasant house at Wickham in Kent, where he devoted himself to learning, and to piety. Of his learning the late Collection exhibits evidence, which would have been yet fuller if the differtations which accompany his verfion of Pindar had not

been

been improperly omitted. Of his piety the influence has, I hope, been extended far by his Obfervations on the Refurrection, published in 1747, for which the Univerfity of Oxford created him a Doctor of Laws by diploma (March 30, 1748); and perhaps it may not be without effect to tell, that he read prayers every evening to his family. Crafhaw is now not the only maker of verfes to whom may be given the two venerable names of Poet and Saint.

He was very often vifited by Lyttelton and Pitt, who, when they were weary of faction and debates, used at Wickham to find books and quiet, a decent table, and literary converfation. There is at Wickham a walk made by Pitt; and, what is of far more importance, at Wickham Lyttelton received that conviction which produced his Differtation on St. Paul.

Mr. Weft's income was not large; and his friends endeavoured, but without fuccefs, to obtain an augmentation. It is reported, that the education of the young prince was offered to him, but that he required a more extenfive

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extenfive power of fuperintendence than it was thought proper to allow him.

In time, however, his revenue was improved; he lived to have one of the lucrative clerkships of the Privy Council (1752), and Mr. Pitt at last had it in his power to make him treasurer of Chelsea Hospital.

He was now fufficiently rich; but wealth came too late to be long enjoyed: nor could it fecure him from the calamities of life; he loft (1755) his only fon; and the year after (March 26), a ftroke of the palfy brought to the grave one of the few poets to whom the grave needed not to be terrible.

Of his tranflations I have only compared the first Olympick Ode with the original, and found my expectation furpaffed, both by its elegance and its exactness. He does not confine himself to his author's train of ftanzas; for he faw that the difference of the languages required a different mode of verfification. The first strophe is eminently happy; in the fecond he has a little ftrayed from Pindar's meaning, who fays, if thou, my foul,

wishest