WE ST. GT ILBERT WEST is one of the writers of whom I regret my inability to give a fufficient account; the intelligence which my enquiries have obtained is general and scanty. He was the fon of the reverend Dr. Weft; perhaps him who published "Pindar" at Oxford about the beginning of this century. His mother was fifter to Sir Richard Temple, afterwards Lord Cobham. His father, purpofing to educate him for the Church, fent him firft to Eton, and afterwards to Oxford; but he was feduced to a more airy mode of life, by a commiffion in a troop of horfe procured him by his uncle. He continued fome time in the army; though it is reasonable to fuppofe that he never funk into a mere foldier, nor ever loft the love, or much neglected the purfuit, of learning; and afterwards, finding himself more inclined to civil employment, he laid down his commiffion, and engaged in business under the Lord Townshend, then fecretary of state, with whom he attended the King to Hanover. His adherence to Lord Townshend ended in nothing but a nomination (May 1729) to be clerk-extraordinary of the Privy Council, which produced no immediate profit; for it only placed him in a ftate of expectation and right of fucceffion, and it was very long before a vacancy admitted him to profit. Soon afterwards he married, and fettled himself in a very pleasant house at Wickham in Kent, where he devoted himself to learning, and to piety. Of his learning the late Collection exhibits evidence, which would have been yet fuller, if the differtations which accompany his verfion of Pindar had not been improperly omitted. Of his piety the influence has, I hope, been extended far by his "Obfervations on "the Resurrection," published in 1747, for which the University of Oxford created him a Doctor of Laws by diploma (March 30, 1748), and would doubtless have reached yet further had he lived to complete what he had for fome time meditated, the Evidences of the Truth of the New Testament. Perhaps it may not be without effect to tell, that he read the prayers of the publick liturgy every morn. ing to his family, and that on Sunday evening he called his fervants into the parlour, and read to them first a fermon and then prayers. Crafhaw is now not the only maker of verfes to whom may be given the two venerable names of Poet and Saint. He was very often vifited by Lyttelton and Pitt, who, when they were weary of faction and debates, ufed at Wickham to find books and quiet, a decent table, and literary converfation. There is at Wickham a walk made by Pitt; and, what is of far more importance, importance, at Wickham Lyttelton received that conviction which produced his "Differtation on St. Paul." These two illuftrious friends had for a while liftened to the blandishments of infidelity; and when Weft's book was published, it was bought by fome who did not know his change of opinion, in expectation of new objections against Chriftianity; and as infidels do not want malignity, they revenged the disappointment by calling him a Methodist. Mr. Weft's income was not large; and his friends endeavoured, but without fuccefs, to obtain an aug. mentation. It is reported, that the education of the young Prince was offered to him, but that he required a more extenfive power of fuperintendance than it was thought proper to allow him. In time, however, his revenue was improved; he lived to have one of the lucrative clerk fhips of the Privy Council (1752); and Mr. Pitt at last had it in his power to make him treasurer of Chelsea Hospital. He was now fufficiently rich; but wealth came too late to be long enjoyed; nor could it fecure him from the calamities of life; he loft (1755) his only fon; and the year after (March 26) a stroke of the palfy brought to the grave one of the few poets to whom the grave might be without its terrors. Of his tranflations I have only compared the first Olympick Ode with the original, and found my expectation furpaffed, both by its elegance and its exactness. He does not confine himself to his author's train of stanzas; for he saw that the difference of languages required a different mode of verfification. The first strophe is eminently happy; in the fecond he has a little ftrayed from Pindar's meaning, who fays, S 3 fays, "if thou, my foul, wifheft to fpeak of games, "look not in the defert sky for a planet hotter than "the fun; nor fhall we tell of nobler games than "thofe of Olympia." He is fometimes too paraphraftical. Pindar beftows upon Hiero an epither, which, in one word, fignifies delighting in borfes; a word which, in the tranflation, generates these lines: Hiero's royal brows, whofe care Tends the courfer's noble breed, Pleas'd to train the youthful fteed. Pindar fays of Pelops, that " he came alone in the "dark to the White Sea;" and Weft, Near the billow-beaten fide Darkling, and alone, he flood: which however is lefs exuberant than the former paffage. A work of this kind muft, in a minute examination, difcover many imperfections; but Weft's verfion, fo far as I have confidered it, appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities. His "Institution of the Garter" (1742) is written with fufficient knowledge of the manners that prevailed in the age to which it is referred, and with great elegance of diction; but, for want of a process of events, neither knowledge nor elegance preferve the reader from weariness. His "Imitations of Spenfer" are very fuccessfully performed, both with respect to the metre, the language, and the fiction; and being engaged at once by by the excellence of the fentiments, and the artifice of the copy, the mind has two amufements together. But fuch compofitions are not to be reckoned among the great atchievements of intellect, because their effect is local and temporary; they appeal not to reafon or paffion, but to memory, and pre-fuppofe an accidental or artificial state of mind. An imitation of Spenfer is nothing to a reader, however acute, by whom Spenfer has never been perused. Works of this kind may deserve praise, as proofs of great induftry, and great nicety of obfervation; but the highest praife, the praife of genius, they cannot claim. The nobleft beauties of art are thofe of which the effect is co-extended with rational nature, or at least with the whole circle of polished life; what is less than this can be only pretty, the plaything of fashion, and the amusement of a day. |