Page 18. Brave minds, opprest, should in defpight of fate,

Looke greatest, like the fune, in lowest ftate.

Blair has the fame thought in his fine poem, the Grave, speaking of the death of the just man;

By unperceiv'd degrees he wears away,
Yet, like the fun, seems larger at bis fetting.

Edinb. Edit. p. 31.

A very original epithet.

Page 20.

Yet know, what bufie path foere you tread
To Gratneffe, you must fleepe among the dead.

How comprehenfively, how plainly, yet how fublimely, hath Gray expressed this trite fentiment:

Page 22.

Page 25.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Church-yard.

With others I commune. See note on p. 27. Vol. I.

could I vie

Angels with India.

An angel is a piece of coin, value ten shillings. The words to vie angels, are a periphrafis, and fignify to compare wealth. See Sir J. Hawkins's note on the passage, p. 264. Walton's Comp. Angler-Cartwright uses the word Angels:

You shall ne'r know what angels, peeces, pounds
These names of want and beggary mean; -

The Ordinary, Act 2. Sc. 3.

Page 27. Read on this dial, &c. No poet whatever has introduced this circumstance with the happiness of Shakspeare; who compares the filent and almost imperceptible flight of beauty, to the stealing shadow of a fundial. As the lines are in one of his minor poems, they may probably bave escaped the notice of common readers:

Ah yet doth Beautie like a dyall hand,

Steale from his figure, and no place perceived;
So your fweete hew, which me-thinks still doth stand

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.

Conftant Affection. Shak. Poems, 1640. Edit.

The verses are incorrect, but the idea is fine-the shadow steals from the dial's hand, and not the dial's hand from the shadow

My short-lived winter's day!

1

Dyer, Dyer, in his well-known Grongar Hill, well denominates the smile of Fate:

A fun-beam in a winter's day.

For farther obfervations on this piece, see Jackson's very elegant and fenfible Letters.

2 Vol. 19 Let.

Page 28. Flame-ey'd Fury. An epithet highly original and fine. Shakspeare uses fire-ey'd Fury, in his Romeo and Juliet.

Page 29. For farther observations, see 2 Vol. 30 Let. Jackson's Letters, where both these particular pieces of Quarles were first more immediately brought forward to the public eye.

Page 30. These lines figned F. K. are probably written by Francis Kinwelmershe, a contributor to the collection in which they appear, and a student of Grays-Inn. He assisted Gascoigne in his Tragedy of Jocasta.

Page 34. But how may I this honour now attaine,

That cannot, &c.

Well may they rife, while I, whose ruftick torgue
Ne'er knew to puzzle right, or varnish wrong,
Spurn'd as a beggar, dreaded as a spy,

Plus æquo liber; fimplex fortisque habeatur. 3 Sat. 1 Lib. 51.

Page 40. And her eternall fame be read,

When ali, but very Vertue's dead.

Somewhat in the manner of Collins:

Belov'd, till life can charm no more;

And mourn'd til Pity's felf be dead.

DIRGE

Page 41. I have always confidered this Epitaph as Carew's Masterpiece. The subject of it may poffibly be the fame person, to whose nuptials with Lord Charles Herbert, Davenant has infcribed some verses. p. 238. Fol Edit.

The Edinburgh Folio Edit, reads more properly, "honours doft devise."

The exclamation in the laft line of this piece is particularly in Drummond's best manner.

Page 44. Sylvester inscribes a Hymn, "To the worthy friend of worthineffe, Sir Peter Manwood, Knight of the Honourable order of the Bath. The father probably of Browne's friend. 561 p. Fol. Edit.

Against the broad fpread oke

Each wind in furie bears;

Yet fell their leaves not halfe fo faft
As did the Shepbeard's teares.

In mere unempaffioned defcription, Similies which are derived from foreign and remote objects, are frequently used with fuccefs; for at the fame time that they afford the writer an opportunity of shewing his knowledge, they enrich and add a variety to Poetry, that it might not have attained by any other means. Yet in pathetic fituations when they immediately arise from the subject itself, or fome collateral branch of it. they conveigh the most direct and unequivocal illustration with a conciseness and expreffion truly admirable. But how frequent is the practice, even with our best writers, in fituations the moft pathetic, and in narratives the most urgent and interesting, cooly to take leave of their subject for the fake of introducing a comparison of perhaps ten or twelve lines! The consequence is, that our former fympathy is thoroughly destroyed, and after toiling through the lines in question, we are left to recall our attention, affociate our diftracted ideas, and recover the loft tone of our feelings at our leifure, which is by this time most probably totally out of our power. In fuch cafes, a Simile taken from the ground of the piece, (if I may be allowed the expression) by confining our attention wholly to the fubject, and by giving us what we want, without obliging us to wander in quest of it, would in three words, almost have completely anfwered the end of the Poet. I will subjoin an instance or two of this comprehenfive kind of illustration. Mallet thus defcribes the father of Edwin:

The Father too, a fordid man,
Who love tor pity knew,
Was all unfeeling as the clod,
From whence his riches grew.

Edw. and Emma.

Above all others perhaps Collins affords one of the most beautiful speci mens, in lines that few have read without emotion. Zara exclaims,

"Farewell the Youth whom fighs could not detain,
Whom Zara's breaking heart implor'd in vain !
Yet as thou go'st may ev'ry blaft arife
Weak and unfelt as these rejected fighs!

Safe o'er the wild, no perils may'st thou see,

No griefs endure, nor weep, false youth, like me."

Eclog. 2.

Broke

Milton, instead of reprefenting the vegetable creation as affected at the death of his friend, with fuperior judgement, calls for the several flowers,

"To strow the laureat herse where Lycid lies."

Among which he mentions,

The glowing violet,

The mufk-rofe, and the well attir'd wood-bine,

With cowflips wan that hang the penfiye head, &c. 145.

Milton, is fanciful, yet affecting; Browne, puerile and disgusting,

Page 51.

Did he attend the court for no man's fall?
Wore he the ruine of no Hofpitall?
And when he did his rich apparell don,
Put be no widow, nor an orphan on ?

The most finished character of Detestation we have, is Maffinger's Sir Giles Overreach. The following part of a dialogue will give the reader some infight into his exquifite talents for mischief.

Lovell. Are you not frighted with the imprecations and curses of whole families, made wretched by your finifter practices?

Overreach. Yes, as rocks are,

When foamy billows split themselves against
Their flinty ribs; or as the moon is mov'd,
When wolves, with hunger pin'd, howl at their brightness.
I'm of a folid temper, and like these

Steer on a conftant course, with mine own sword,
If call'd into the field, I can make that right,
Which fearful enemies murmured at as wrong.
Now, for those other piddling complaints
Breath'd out in bitterness; as when they call me
Extortioner, Tyrant, Cormorant, or Intruder
On my poor neighbour's right; or grand Incloser
Of what was common, to my private use;
Nay, when my ears are pierc'd with widows cries,
And undone orphans wosh with tears my threshold;
I only think what 'tis to have my daughter.
Right honourable; and 'tis a powerful charm
Makes me insensible of remorfe or pity,
Or the least sting of confcience.

New way to pay Old Debts. Act. 4. Sc. 1.
In

In the last Scene of the fame Play, the distresses that he had occafioned take faft hold of his confcience, and give rise to the following terribly fublime exclamation:

"Ill fall to execution-ha! I am feeble:
Some undone widow fits upon mine arm.
And takes away the use of 't; and my fword
Glued to my scabbard with wrong'd orphans tears
Will not be drawn, &c.

Page 54. In this little Piece, of five lines only, there is a certain Greekness (if I may be allowed the expreffion) that will not fail of captivating every reader of true tafte. We may justly apply on this occafion a fentence of Dryden, who says, "The sweetest effences are always confined in the smallest glasses." Dedication to his Æneid:

And in his wrinkled hand.

What a degree of animation and life is often thrown into a line by a fingle picturesque, and natural epithet! In this respect Shakspeare leaves all other poets far behind. To inftance only in a fingle passage. Henry the 5th, in his prayer before the battle of Agincourt, fays,

Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay
Who twice a day their wirber'd' hands hold up
Toward Heaven to pardon blood.

S. 5. 4 A.

Applied to Old

Alter the epithet wither'd to almost any other, and you instantly destroy the picture; for an epithet equally striking, fee Vol. 18. p. Age:

Page 55.

His wither'd fist still knocking at Death's dore.
Methinks, I hear a voice, &c.

There is an alarming folemnity in the conclufion of these lines, that reminds as of Tickell's juftly popular Ballad:

Which fays I must not flay, &c.

I hear a voice, you cannot hear,

Page 56.

Page 63.

for if thy yeares

Lucy and Collin.

Be number'd by thy virtues and our teares, &c.

Methufalems may die at twenty-one. YOUNG.

deftimate to die.

One would suppose it should be destined.

Page 66. Instead of writing only rave in verse.

This is what Pope calls, " rhyming with all the rage of impotence." 612. Effay on Chriticism,

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