ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

he recommended by a preface. This was his last work. He died January 18, 1717-18, and was buried at Harrow on the Hill.

"His poetry has been praised at least equally to its merit. In the "Dispensary" there is a strain of smooth and free versification, but few lines are eminently elegant No passages fall below mediocrity, and few rise much above it. The plan seems formed without just proportion to the subject; the means and end have no necessary connexion. Mesnel, in his " Preface to Pope's Essay," remarks, that Garth exhibits no discrimination of characters; and that what any one says might with equal propriety have been said by another. The general design is open to criticism, but the composition can seldom be charged with inaccuracy or negligence. The author never slumbers in self-indulgence; his full vigour is always exerted; scarce a line is left unfinished, nor is it easy to find an expression used by constraint, or a thought imperfectly expressed. It was remarked by Pope, that the "Dispensary" had been corrected in every edition, and that every change was an improvement. It appears, however, to want something of generał delectation; and therefore, since it has been no longer supported by accidental and extrinsic popularity, it has been scarcely able to support itself.

"

JOHN PHILIPS.

JOHN PHILIPS was born on the 30th of December 1676 at Bampton in Oxfordshire, of which place his father, Dr. Stephen Philips, Archdeacon of Salop, was minister. The first part of his education was domestic, after which he was sent to Winchester, where he soon distinguished himself by the superiority of his exercises, and endeared himself to his school - fellows by his civility and good nature. It is said that he seldom mingled with them in play, but retired to his chamber, where he used to sit hour after hour, while his hair was combed by somebody whose service he found means to procure.

At school he became acquainted with the poets ancient and modern, and fixed his attention particularly on Milton.

In 1694 he entered himself at Christ Church, where he was distinguished as a genius eminent among the eminent. The profession which he intended to follow was that of physic; and he took much delight in natural history, of which botany was his favourite part.

[ocr errors]

In 1703 he published the "Splendid Shilling,' which struck the public attention with a mode of writing new and unexpected. "Blenheim" appeared in 1705. The next year produced his greatest work, the poem upon Cider," in two books, which was received with loud praises. He then began to meditate a poem on the " Last Day," but did

[ocr errors]

not live to finish it. A slow consumption and an asthma put an end to his existence on the 15th of February 1708, at the beginning of his thirty-third year. He was buried in the cathedral of Hereford, and Simon Harcourt, afterwards Lord Chancellor, gave him a monument in Westminster Abbey.

"His works are few. The "Splendid Shilling" has the uncommon merit of an original design, unless it may be thought precluded by the ancient Centos. To degrade the sounding words and stately construction of Milton, by an application to the lowest and most trivial things, gratifies the mind with a momentary triumph over that grandeur which held its captives in admiration; the words and things are presented with a new appearance, and novelty is always grateful where it gives no pain."

The poem of "Blenheim" Johnson seems to consider only as a tolerable production. On that entitled "Cider" he criticises thus

"To the poem of" Cider," written in imitation of the " Georgics," may be given this peculiar praise, that it is grounded in truth; that the precepts which it contains are exact and just; and that it is therefore, at once, a book of entertainment and of science. This I was told by Miller, the great gardener and botanist, whose expression was, that there were many books, written on the same subject in prose, which do not contain so much as that poem.

"In the disposition of his matter, so as to intersperse precepts relating to the culture of trees, with

sentiments more generally pleasing, and in easy and graceful transitions from one subject to another, he has very diligently imitated his master; but he unhappily pleased himself with blank verse, and supposed that the numbers of Milton, which impress the mind with veneration, combined as they are with subjects of inconceivable grandeur, could be sustained by images which at most can. rise only to elegance. Contending angels may shake the regions of heaven in blank verse, but the flow of equal measures, and the embellishment of rhyme, must recommend to our attention the art of engrafting, and decide the merit of the redstreak and pearmain.

"What study could confer Philips had attained, but natural deficience cannot be supplied. He seems not born to greatness and elevation. He is never lofty, nor does he often surprise with unexpected excellence; but perhaps to his last poem may be applied what Tully said of the work of Lucretius, that it is written with much art, though with few blazes of genius."

[ocr errors]

POMFRET.

OF Mr. John Pomfret nothing is known, but from a slight and confused account prefixed to his poems by a nameless friend, who relates that he was the son of the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, Rector of Luton in Bedfordshire; that he was bred at

Cambridge, entered into orders, and was Rector of Malden in Bedfordshire. A malicious interpretation of some passages in his "Choice," inferring that he considered happiness as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of a wife, prevented him from rising higher in the church.

Notwithstanding this opinion, he married; but waiting in London in the expectation of some preferment, he caught the small pox, and died in 1703 in the thirty-sixth year of his age.

"He published his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that class of readers, who, without vanity or criticism, seek only their own

amusement.

"His "Choice" exhibits a system of life adapted to common notions, and equal to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity without exclusion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no composition in our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's " Choice."

"In his other poems there is an easy volubility; the pleasure of smooth metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not oppressed with ponderous, or entangled with intricate sentiment. He pleases many, and he who pleases many must have merit."

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »