not added to the prolixity of his work by inferting long difquifitions from other authors in the body of it; and even the very numerous quotations in the notes might, without detriment, have been abridged. He may claim, indeed, the merit of being exceedingly accurate, and of being perfectly acquainted with his fubject; but his readers are more obliged to him for relating and adjusting facts, than for reflections on them, or for examinations of their causes, and of the motives which led their actors to undertake them.

He is careful in quoting authorities, and in giving his reafons for preferring fome, and neglecting others; and we know of no history which gives a more full and diftinct idea of the Roman affairs. The liberty we have taken to dispute his opinion on fundry fubjects, proceeds from no defire of cavilling, but from that of difcovering truth, a liberty which, in our own fituation, we are always willing to allow others--banc veniam petimusque damusque viciffim.

III. The Works of William Browne. With the Life of the Author. With Notes and Obfervations by the reverend W. Thompson. Three Vols. 8vo. 7s. 6d. Davies.

Illiam Browne was defcended from a refpectable family in Devonshire, and was born at Tavistock, in the year 1590. About the beginning of the reign of James I. he was fent to Exeter College in Oxford; where he made a great proficiency in the learned languages, and the belles lettres. Before he took any academical degree, he removed to the Inner Temple at which place he more particularly devoted himself to the Muses.

In the beginning of the year 1624, he returned to Exeter College, and was tutor to Robert Dormer, afterwards earl of Carnarvon, who was killed in battle at Newbury, Sept. 20, 1643. On the 16th of November 1624, our author was created mafter of arts. In the public regifter of the univerfity, he is ftiled, vir omni humaná literaturâ, et bonarum artium cognitione inftructus.

After he had left college with his pupil, he refided in the. family of William earl of Pembroke, who had a great regard for him. While he was in this fituation, he encreased his fortune, as Mr. A. Wood informs us, and purchased an estate. The fame writer adds, that he had a great foul in a little body.With respect to the time of his death he is very doubtful. He only fays, that in his fearches, he finds, that one William Browne, of Ottery, in Devonshire, died in the year 16455 but that he does not know whether this was our poet, or fome other person of the fame name.

Mr. Browne's poetical works were read with pleafure, and procured him the acquaintance and efteem of fome of the moft learned and ingenious men of that age. We have many teftimonies of the high esteem in which they were held.

Philips, in his Theatrum Poetarum, speaking of the Bri tannia's Paftorals, fays, though they are not of the fublimeft strain, yet for a subject of that nature, amorous and rural, they contain matter not unpleasant to the reader.'

Winstanley, in his Lives of the English Poets, styles that performance a moft ingenious piece; being, fays he, for the fubject of an amorous and rural nature, worthily deferving commendations, as any one will confefs, who shall peruse it with an impartial eye.'

The author of the Memoirs of the Life of Mr. William Pattifon, of Sidney College, Cambridge, prefixed to his Poems, printed in 1728, tells us, that from fome inftances which he produces, it will appear, even to our most infallible critics, that, though Mr. Browne wrote an hundred and eleven years ago, his language is as nervous, his numbers as harmonious, his defcriptions as natural, his panegyric as foft, and his fatiret as pointed, as any that are to be found in the whipt-fyllabub poetafters of the prefent century,

Who verfes write, as foft, as fmooth, as cream :
The poem ended, no one knows the theme."

It is faid of Mr. Pattifon, that of all the books he ever read, Spencer's Fairy Queen, and Brown's Britannia's Paftorals, gave him the greatest delight; and that the last mentioned book, which he had purchafed for a fhilling, was, through his miffortunes, all the library he left behind him at his death.

Prince, in his Worthies of Devon, informs us, that as Mr. Browne had honoured his country with his fweet and elegant Paftorals, so it was expected, and he was intreated, a little farther to grace it by drawing out the line of his poetic ancestors, beginning in Jofeph Ifcanus, and ending in himfelf.' But this defign was never accomplished.

Jofephus Ifcanus, or Exceftrienfis, died about the end of the twelfth century. Befides many other poetical works, he wrote a poem in fix bocks, De Bello Trojano, which begins in this manner; Iliadum lachrymas, conceffaque Pergama fatis, Prælia bina ducum, bis adactam cladibus urbem In cineres, querimur, &c.'

This poem was, in fome editions, afcribed to Cornelius Nepos.. But Sam, Drefemius, who published an edition of it, with learned notes, at Frankfort, in 1623, reftored it to its proper author. There was likewise an edition of it published at London, in 1675, ex emendatione Joannis Mori. Voffius fays of Ifcanus, Vir fuit Latinè, Gre

This author, who had been efteemed and recommended by the best writers of his time, by Ben Johnfon, Michael Drayton, the learned Selden, and others, met with a fate uncommon and unmerited by fo great a genius: in a few years after his death, he was almost forgotten. We can find no trace of any of his works fince the year 1625.

The editor of this edition informs us, that he has been affifted in the publication by feveral gentlemen, who have enabled him to make it as complete as poffible.

The gentlemen of the king's library favoured him with the ufe of the first edition of Britannia's Paftorals*, which had several manuscript notes in the margin, written by the reverend Mr. W. Thompfon, late of Queen's College, Oxford. Mr. Thompson, it is imagined, intended to print an edition of this work, with notes and observations. The remarks which he has left are printed in their proper places.

The Shepherd's Pipe was become fo very scarce, that if the ingenious Mr. Tho. Warton, had not lent his own copy to be transcribed, the editor, it is apprehended, would not have been able to gratify the public with a new edition of this valuable work.

The reverend Mr. Price of Oxford fent the publisher a correct copy, taken from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, of Browne's Elegy upon the Death of Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest fon of James I. Mr. Farmer of Emanuel College, Cambridge, not only transmitted him a little poem, which is inferted at the end of the third volume, but procured from. the library of Emanuel College The Inner Temple Mafque, a piece which had never been printed.

Mr. Browne's capital performance, the Britannia's Paftorals, in fome refpects refembles Spencer's Fairy Queen. Mirina, a beautiful young virgin, is in love, and runs through a variety of strange adventures. The story has no regular plan, no exact arrangement of parts. It abounds with episodes and digreffions. The poet introduces many allegorical perfonages, and prefents us with a variety of tender fcenes, lively, picturefque, and romantic defcriptions.

A river god, while Marina lay fleeping on his bank, declares his paffion for her in this gallant foliloquy :

'Would the be wonne with me to stay,

My waters fhould bring from the sea

The corall red, as tribute due,

And roundest pearles of orient hue :

céque doctus et admodùm difertus; imò poëtarum Britannicorum fuo avo princeps. Voff. de Hift. Lat. l. ii. c. 56. Camden calls him, fplendidiffimo ingenio poetam. Brit. p. 133. Edit. Franc. 1590.

The firft part was printed in 1613, the second in 1616. `

Or

Or in the richer veines of ground
Should feeke for her the diamond.
And whereas now unto my fpring
They nothing elfe but gravell bring,
They fhould within a myne of gold
In piercing manner long time hold,
And having it to duft well wrought,
By them it hither fhould be brought;
With which ile pave and over-fpread
My bottome, where her foote fhall tread.
The best of fishes in my flood

Shall give themfelves to be her food.
The trout, the dace, the pike, the breame,
The eele, that loves the troubled ftreame,
The miller's thombe, the hiding loach,
The perch, the ever-nibling roach,
The thoates with whom is Tavie fraught,
The foolish gudgeon quickly caught,
And laft the little minnow fish,

Whose chiefe delight in gravel! is.'-B. I. Song 2.
The defcription of a grove.

Not all the oyntments brought from Delos isle :
Nor from the confines of feaven-headed Nyle;
Nor that brought whence Phoenicians have abodes;
Nor Cyprus wilde vine flowers; nor that of Rhodes;
Nor rofes oyle from Naples, Capua,

Saffron confected in Cilicia;

Nor that of quinces, nor that of marioram,

That ever from the ifle of Coös, came.

Nor thefe, nor any elfe, though ne're fo rare,
Could with this place for fweeteft fmels compare.
There ftood the elme, whofe thade fo mildly dym
Doth nourish all that groweth under hym,
Cipreffe that like piramides runne topping,
And hurt the least of any by their dropping.
The alder, whofe fat fhadow nourisheth,
Each plant fet neere to him long flowrisheth.
The heavie-headed plane-tree, by whofe fhade
The graffe grows thickest, men are fresher made.
The oake, that beft endures the thunder flocks:
The everlasting ebene, cedar, boxe.

The olive that in wainscot never cleaves.

The amorous vine which in the elme ftill weaves.
The lotus, juniper, where wormes ne'er enter :
The pyne, with whom men through the ocean venter.
The warlike yewgth, by which (more than the lance)
The ftrong-arm'd English fpirits conquer'd France.
Among the reft the tamarifke there food,
For hufwive's befomes only knowne moft good.
The cold-place-loving birch, and fervis tree:

The walnut loving vales, and mulbury.

The maple, afhe, that doe delight in fountains,

Which have their currents by the fides of mountaines.
The laurell, mirtle, ivy, date, which hold

Their leaves all winter, be it ne'er fo cold.

The firre, that oftentimes doth rofin drop:

The beech that fcales the welkin with his top:

All

All these, and thousand more within this grove,
By all the industry of nature ftrove

To frame an harbour that might keepe within it
The best of beauties that the world hath in it.'

Ibid.

The latter part of this paffage is an imitation of the eighth and ninth ftanzas of the first canto of Spencer's Fairy Queen. Our author feems to have equalled, or perhaps excelled the original, in this paradifaical scenery.

If the following night piece is not as beautiful as that of Virgil, in the fourth Æneid, v. 522-532. or that of Taffo, there is at least fomething in it, which is pleafing, melancholy, and pathetic.

Now had the glorious funne tane up his inne,
And all the lamps of heav'n inlight'ned bin,
Within the gloomy fhades of fome thicke fpring,
Sad Philomel gan on the haw-thorne fing,
(Whilst every beast at reft was lowly laid)
The outrage done upon a feely maide.

All things were hufht, each bird fept on his bough;
And night gave reft to him, day-tir'd at plough;
Each beaft, each bird, and each day toyling wight,
Receiv'd the comfort of the filent night:

Free from the gripes of forrow every one,
Except poore Philomel and Doridon;

She on a thorne fings fweet though fighing ftraines ;
He on a couch more foft, more fad complaines:

Whose in-pent thoughts him long time having pained,
He fighing wept, and weeping thus complained. B. I. S. 3.

Taffo's description of the night is as follows:

Era la notte, all' or ch'alto ripofo

Han l'onde, e i venti, e parea muto il mondo;
Gli animai laffi, e quei, che 'l mar ondofo,
O de' liquidi laghi alberga il fondo,

E chi fi giace in tana, o in mandra afcofo,
E i pinti augelli ne l'obblio profondo,
Sotto il filenzio de' fecreti orrori,
Sopian gli affanni, e raddolciano i cori.

Ma nè'l campo fedel, nè 'l Franco duca

Si difcioglie nel fonno, o pur s'accheta.'

Geruf. Liberata, c. ii. ft. 96, 97.

Now had the night her drowsy pinions spread;

The winds were hush'd; the weary waves were dead;
The fish repos'd in feas and chrystal floods;
The beafts retir'd in covert of the woods;

The painted birds in grateful filence flept;

And o'er the world a fweet oblivion crept.

But not the faithful hoft, with thought opprefs'd,
Nor could their leader tafte the gift of reft.

HOOLE.

This paffage is almoft word for word borrowed from Virgi. Taffo leaves out the hemiftic, volvuntur fydera lapfu, and fupplies its place (perhaps from Statius's mutumque amplec