The benevolence of Thoifon was fervid, but not active; he would give on all occafions what affistance his purfe would fupply; but the offices of intervention or folicitation he could not conquer his fluggishnefs fufficiently to perform. The affairs of others, however, were not more neglected than his own. He had often felt the inconveniences of idlenefs, but he never cured it; and was fo confcious of his own character, that he talked of writing an Eaftern Tale "of the Man who loved to be in Diftrefs."

Among his peculiarities was a very unfkilful and inarticulate manner of pronouncing any lofty or folemn compofition. He was once reading to Dodington, who, being himself a reader eminently elegant, was fo much provoked by his odd utterance, that he snatched the paper from his hands, and told him that he did not understand his own verfes.

The biographer of Thomfon has remarked, that an author's life is beft read in his works: his obfervation was not well timed. Savage, who lived much with Thomfon, once told me, how he heard a lady remarking that she could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was a great Lover, a great "Swimmer, and rigourously abstinent;" but, said Savage, he knows not any love but that of the fex; he was perhaps never in cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the luxury that comes within his reach. Yet Savage always fpoke with the most eager praife of his focial qualities, his warmth and conftancy of friendship, and his adherence to his first 'acquaintance when the advancement of his reputation had left them behind him.

As

As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode of thinking, and of expreffing his thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no more the blank verfe of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without tranfcription, without imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius; he looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which Nature beftows only on a poet; the eye that diftinguishes, in every thing prefented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vaft, and attends to the minute. The reader of the "Seafons" wonders that he never faw before what Thomfon fhews him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomfon impreffes.

His is one of the works in which blank verfe feems properly used. Thomfon's wide expanfion of general views, and his enumeration of circumftantial varieties, would have been obftructed and embarraffed by the frequent interfection of the fenfe, which are the neceffary effects of rhyme.

His defcriptions of extended fcenes and general effects bring before us the whole magnificence of Nature, whether pleafing or dreadful. The gaiety of Spring, the fplendour of Summer, the tranquillity of Autumn, and the horror of Winter, take in their turns poffeffion of the mind. The poet leads us through the appearances of things as they are fucceffively varied by the viciffitudes of the year, and imparts to

us

us fo much of his own enthusiasm, that our thoughts expand with his imagery, and kindle with his fentiments. Nor is the naturalift without his part in the entertainment; for he is affifted to recollect and to combine, to range his discoveries, and to amplify the sphere of his contemplation.

The great defect of the "Seafons" is want of method; but for this I know not that there was any remedy. Of many appearances fubfifting all at once, no rule can be given why one fhould be mentioned before another; yet the memory wants the help of order, and the curiofity is not excited by fufpence or expectation.

His diction is in the highest degree florid and luxuriant, fuch as may be said to be to his images and thoughts "both their luftre and their fhade;" fuch as invest them with splendour, through which perhaps they are not always easily discerned. It is too exuberant, and fometimes may be charged with filling the ear more than the mind.

These Poems, with which I was acquainted at their first appearance, I have fince found altered and enlarged by fubfequent revifals, as the author fuppofed his judgement to grow more exact, and as books or converfation extended his knowledge and opened his profpects. They are, I think, improved in general; yet I know not whether they have not loft part of what Temple calls their " race;" a word which, applied to wines in its primitive fenfe, means the flavour

of the foil.

"Liberty," when it first appeared, I tried to read, and foon defifted. I have never tried again,

and

and therefore will not hazard either praife or cenfure.

The highest praise which he has received ought not to be fuppreft: it is faid by Lord Lyttelton, in the Prologue to his pofthumous play, that his works contained

No line which, dying, he could wish to blot.

WATTS.

WATT S.

TH

HE Poems of Dr. WATTS were by my recommendation inferted in the late Collection; the readers of which are to impute to me whatever pleasure or weariness they may find in the perufal of Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden.

ISAAC WATTS was born July 17, 1674, at Southampton, when his father, of the fame name, kept a boarding school for young gentlemen, though common report makes him a shoemaker. He appears, from the narrative of Dr. Gibbons, to have been neither indigent nor illiterate.

Ifaac, the eldest of nine children, was given to books from his infancy; and began, we are told, to learn Latin when he was four years old, I fuppofe, at home. He was afterwards taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, by Mr. Pinhorne, a clergyman, master of the Free-school at Southampton, to whom the gratitude of his fcholar afterwards infcribed a Latin ode.