sensibility, he appeared reserved among strangers; among his friends he was free and easy; and his conversation sprightly and entertaining. In domestic life, he was the affectionate husband, the tender parent, the kind master, the hospitable neighbour, and sincere friend; and, both by his doctrine and example, a faithful and worthy minister of the parish over which he presided.'

6

Edge Hill,' the longest and most laboured of Jago's compositions, is the poem on which he probably built his hopes of fame. It is of that species to which may be given the name of the Landscape Poem, and in which success can be attained only by those who possess not merely descriptive powers, but also ardent feeling and a vivid fancy. To prevent a poem of this species from being confused and tedious is no easy task; yet the task has been attempted by many writers. The beauties of a rich and extensive prospect are so captivating, that it seems natural to be desirous of displaying them in the colours of the Muse. But here the poet labours under a striking and irremovable disadvantage. Those objects which, with all their glowing hues, their blendings and contrasts, their shifting and endless variety of light and shade, are seen at a glance by the corporeal eye, he is under the necessity of presenting in succession to the mental sight. In the landscape, rivers, and forests, and mountains, and villas, and towers, and towns, rush at once upon the gaze; and their magnitude and combination produce an irresistible impression. In the poem, they pass by, like the shadows of a magic lantern, in languid order, insulated from, and counteracting the effect of, each other. This kind of poem must, therefore, depend for its charm rather upon the tender, or solemn, or picturesque trains of ideas which it excites in the mind of the reader, than on its rigid fidelity in the deli

neating of external forms. Of this principle Jago appears to have been either ignorant or careless. Every thing that he sees he paints, with all the minuteness of a Dutch artist, who bestows upon freckles and hairs, and upon noses and eyes, the same degree of patient labour. Not a mansion is suffered to rear its chimneys unsung. This fault often gives to his work the dryness of a topography, or of a book of the roads, clothed in rhyme. His digressions and episodes are not remarkable for elegance or vigour; the Blind Youth is the most pleasing of them: nor does he always link them gracefully with his main subject. The transition from Shenstone and grief to Birmingham and hardware is ludicrously abrupt. With respect to the mechanism of his blank verse, it is far from being perfect. His versification neither fills nor sooths the ear with sonorous or melodious strains. It is too tame, too uniform, too much clogged with words of an unmusical sound. Yet though, as a whole, Edge Hill' is defective, candour must admit that it contains many passages which are deserving of praise.

6

The fable of Labour and Genius' has sprightliness and humour; but it is, at first sight, not easy to discover what moral its writer intended to be deduced from it. The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from his premises is, that the productions of taste and genius are of no real utility. This, however, is not his meaning, and the conclusion itself is erroneous. With the aid of a very little more skill, he might have shown that, in different ways, labour and genius are equally useful to mankind.

The remainder of his poems are chiefly trifles, written on various occasions. Trifles, to have any merit, must at least be elegant. Like some ornamental parts of the female dress, which are com

posed of slight and unexpensive materials, they must owe their attractiveness and their value to the beauty of their forms, and the manner in which they are disposed. The trifles of Jago have no claim to this praise. They are, in general, such verses as many could write, and which few persons will read.

From this censure must, nevertheless, be excepted the three elegies entitled, 'The Blackbirds,' 'The Goldfinches,' and 'The Swallows.' In the two former, simplicity and tenderness are united; and the latter inculcates moral truth in just and dignified language. With the elegy on 'The Blackbirds' there is a curious circumstance connected. The poem originally appeared in 'The Adventurer,' in which paper it was mistakenly attributed to Gilbert West; and Jago had no sooner asserted his right to it, by publishing it with his own signature, in Dodsley's Collection, than another claimant started up, in the person of the manager of a Bath theatre, who had the hardihood to assert that he was the author, and that Jago was nothing more than a fictitious name, adopted from the tragedy of Othello. The stratagem of this daring plunderer was, however, of no avail; the disgrace of having employed it being the whole that he gained.

M

HINTS FOR A PREFACE.

THE following sheets were fairly transcribed, the titlepage was adjusted, and every thing, as the writer thought, in readiness for the press, when, upon casting his eyes over them for the last time, with more than usual attention, something seemed wanting, which, after a short pause, he perceived to be the Preface. Now it is fit the reader should know, as an apology for this seeming inattention, that he had formerly rejected this article, under a notion of its being superfluous and uninteresting to the reader; but now, when matters were come to a crisis, and it was almost too late, he changed his mind, and thought a preface as essential to the figure of a book, as a portico is to that of a building.

Not that the author would insinuate by this comparison, that his paper edifice was entitled to any thing superb and pompous of this sort; but only that it wanted something plain and decent, between the beggarly style of Quarles or Ogilby, and the magnificence of the profuse Dryden. Far be it from him, by calling this small appendage to his work by the name of a portico, or an antechamber, or a vestibule, or the like, to raise the reader's expectations, or to encourage any ideas but those of the most simple kind, as introductory to his subsequent entertainment: neither would he, like some undertakers in. literary architecture, bestow as much expense on the