Daphnis, and I think a good one. In the whole I agree with the "Tatler,' that we have no better eclogues in our language. This gentleman, if I am not much mistaken in his talent, is capable of writing very nobly, as I guess by a small copy of his, published in the "Tatler," on the Danish Winter. It is a very lively piece of poetical painting, and I recommend it particularly to your perusal.-POPE, ALEXANDER, 1710, Letter to Cromwell, Oct. 28, Pope's Works, ed. Elwin, vol. VI, p. 106.

In mock heroic poems the use of the heathen mythology is not only excusabie, but graceful, because it is the design of such compositions to divert, by adapting the fabulous machines of the ancients to

low subjects, and at the same time by ridiculing such kinds of machinery in modern writers. If any are of opinion that there is a necessity of admitting these classical legends into our serious compositions, in order to give them a more poetical turn, I would recommend to their consideration the pastorals of Mr. Philips. One would have thought it impossible for this kind of poetry to have subsisted without fawns and satyrs, wood-nymphs, and water-nymphs, with all the tribe of rural deities.

But we see he has given a new life and a more natural beauty to this way of writing, by substituting in the place of these antiquated fables the superstitious mythology which prevails among the shepherds of our own country.-ADDISON, JOSEPH, 1712, The Spectator, Oct, 30, No. 523.

Theocritus, who left his dominions to Virgil; Virgil, left his to his son Spenser ; and Spenser, was succeeded by his eldestborn Philips.-TICKELL, THOMAS, ? 1713, Guardian No. 32.

When I remarked it as a principal fault, to introduce fruits and flowers of a foreign growth, the descriptions with the scene lies in our country, I did not design that observation should extend also to animals, or the sensitive life; for Mr. Philips hath with great judgment described wolves in England, in his first Pastoral. Nor would I have a poet slavishly confine himself (as Mr. Pope hath done), to one particular season of the year, one certain time of the day, and one unbroken scene in each eclogue. 'Tis plain, Spenser neglected this pedantry, who, in his pastoral of

November, mentions the mournful song of the nightingale.

Sad Philemel her song in tears doth steep. And Mr. Philips, by a poetical creation, hath raised up finer beds of flowers than the most industrious gardener; his roses, endives, lilies, kingcups, and daffodils, blow all in the same season.- POPE, ALEXANDER, 1713, The Guardian, No. 40, p. 264.

Notwithstanding the ridicule which Mr. Philips has drawn upon himself, by his opposition to Pope, and the disadvantageous light his Pastorals appear in, when compared with his; yet, there is good reason to believe, that Mr. Philips was no mean Arcadian : By endeavouring to imitate too servilely the manners and sentiments of vulgar rustics, he has sometimes raised a laugh against him; yet there are in some of his Pastorals a natural simplicity, a true Doric dialect, and very graphical descriptions.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. v, p. 133.

Philips attempted to be more simple and natural than Pope; but he wanted genius to support his attempt, or to write agreeably. He, too, runs on the common and beaten topics; and endeavouring to be simple, he becomes flat and insipid.— BLAIR, HUGH, 1783, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Letters, ed. Mills, Lecture xxxix.

It is not uninstructive to see how tolerable Ambrose is, so long as he sticks manfully to what he really saw. The moment he undertakes to improve on Nature he sinks into the mere court poet, and we surrender him to the jealousy of Pope without a sigh.-LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, 1871, A Good Word for Winter, My Study Windows, p. 45.

GENERAL

With Philips shall the peaceful valleys ring, And Britain hear a second Spenser sing. -TICKELL, THOMAS, 1713, On the Prospect of Peace.

All ye poets of the age! All ye witlings of the stage, Learn your jingles to reform, Crop your numbers and conform: Let your little verses flow Gently, sweetly, row by row. Let the verse the subject fit, Little subject, little wit, Namby-Pamby is your guide Albion's joy, Hibernia's pride. -CAREY, HENRY, 1729, Namby-Pamby.

bear them, as well as misfortunes, without interrupting her own ease, or that of others, with complaints or reproaches. The pressures of very contracted fortune were supported by her with calmness and in silence, nor did she ever attempt to improve it among those great personages to whom she was known, by importunities; to which the best minds are most averse, and which her approved merit and established reputation should have rendered unnecessary.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. V, p. 118.

GENERAL

Posterity, at least, will be so solicitous to know, to whom they will owe the most demonstrative and perspicuous reasonings, upon subjects of eternal importance; and her own sex is entitled to the fullest information about one, who has done such honour to them, and raised our ideas of their intellectual powers, by an example of the greatest extent of understanding and correctness of judgment, united to all the vivacity of imagination. Antiquity, indeed, boasted of its Female Philosophers, whose merits have been drawn forth in an elaborate treatise of Menage.-BIRCH, THOMAS, 1751, ed. Mrs. Catherine Cockburn's Collected Works.

But say what matron now walks musing forth

From the bleak mountains of her native north?

While round her brows two sisters of the Nine

Poetic wreaths with philosophic twine! Hail, Cockburn, hail! even now from reason's bowers

Thy Locke delighted culls the choicest flowers

To deck his great, successful champion's head,

And Clarke expects thee in the laurel shade. Though long to dark oblivious wants a prey,

Thy aged worth passed unperceived away, Yet Scotland now shall ever boast thy fame, While England mourns thy undistinguished

name,

And views with wonder, in a female mind, Philosopher, divine, and poet joined. -DUNCOMBE, JOHN, 1754, The Feminead.

Her poetry has a compression of thought and an ease of style which greatly distinguished it from the verse of most female writers in her time.-ROWTON, FREDERIC, 1848, The Female Poets of Great Britain, p. 113.

Although much has been said and written about Locke by the ablest metaphysicians of his age, and of each succeeding generation, it may be questioned whether his own words has ever been more truly construed than by Mrs. Cockburn. What she wrote concerning his opinions during his life was approved by Locke himself; what she wrote of them after his decease was acknowledged to be correct by his most intimate associates, to whom he had frequently and familiarly expounded them.-WILLIAMS, JANE, 1861, The Literary Women of England, p. 184.

Mrs. Cockburn was a clever woman, and kept no dull household, though she there wrote a defence of Locke, while her reverend husband was perusing an account of the Mosaic deluge. As a metaphysical and controversial writer, she gathered laurels and abuse in her day, for the latter of which she found compensation in the friendship and admiration of Warburton. She was a valiant woman, too; one, whom asthma and the ills of life could not deter from labor. But death relieved her from all these, in 1749; and she is remembered in the history of literature as a good and well-accomplished woman; the very opposite of Mrs. Behn and all her heroines.-DORAN, JOHN, 1863, Annals of the English Stage, vol. 1, p. 166.

PERSONAL

Merope will be acted on the 9th for the author's bt.-We believe it will be sufficient to draw together a very numerous audience on this occasion to inform our readers that the Gentleman who wrote this Tragedy has been confined to his bed. these 8 months past by a lingering and consuming illness; and this only favour which he is to receive from the public, will in all probability be the last.-GENERAL ADVERTISER, 1750, Feb. 3.

His person was (in youth) extremely fair, and handsome; his eyes were a dark blue, both bright and penetrating; brown hair and visage oval; which was enlivened with a smile, the most agreeable in conversation; where his address was affably engaging; to which was joined a dignity which rendered him at once respected and admired, by those (of either sex) who were acquainted with him-He was tall, genteelly made, and not thin. His voice was sweet, his conversation elegant; and capable of entertaining upon various subjects. His disposition was benevolent, beyond the power of the fortune he was. blessed with; the calamities of those he knew (and valued as deserving) affected him more than his own: He had fortitude of mind sufficient to support with calmness great misfortune; and from his birth it may be truly said he was obliged to meet it.

His temper, though by nature warm (when injuries were done him) was as nobly forgiving; mindful of that great lesson in religion, of returning good for evil; and he fulfilled it often to the prejudice of his own circumstances. He was a tender husband, friend, and father; one of the best masters to his servants, detesting the too common inhumanity, that treats them almost as if they were not fellowcreatures. His manner of life was temperate in all respects (which might have promis'd greater length of years) late. hours excepted; which his indefatigable love of study drew him into; night being not liable to interruptions like the day. CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. V, p. 262.

Mr. Hill in person was tall and genteel; in advanced life, his figure, air, and manner, were gracefully venerable; with a warm and benevolent mind, he had the delicate address and polite manners of the complete gentleman.-DAVIES, THOMAS, 1780, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, vol. I, p. 131.

Few men have so completely mistaken their own abilities as Mr. Hill, who did every thing he ought not to have done in his youth an historian; in manhood he gave up the superintendence of the public amusements, an office in which he excelled, to be, in a more advanced age, a visionary and unsuccessful projector.-NOBLE, MARK, 1806, A Biographical History of England, vol. III, p. 300.

One of Pope's Literary Quarrels must be distinguished for its romantic cast. . Where, in literary history, can be found the parallel of such an offer of self-immolation? This was a literary quarrel like that of lovers, where to hurt each other would have given pain to both parties. Such skill and desire to strike, with so much tenderness in inflicting a wound; so much compliment, with so much complaint; have perhaps never met together, as in the romantic hostility of this literary chivalry.-DISRAELI, ISAAC, 1814, Pope, Quarrels of Authors.

He was reconciled to Pope, and taught the poor poet by experience that his friendship was worse than his enmity. He wrote his letters of criticism; he forced poor Pope to negotiate for him with managers and to bring distinguished friends to the performances of his dreary plays; nay, to read through, or to say that he had read through, one of them in manuscript four times, and made corrections mixed with elaborate eulogy. No doubt Pope came to regard letter from Hill with terror, though Hill compared him to Horace and Juvenal, and hoped that he would live till the virtues which his spirit would propagate became as general as the esteem of his genius. In short, Hill, who was a florid flatterer, is so complimentary that we are not surprised to find him telling Richardson, after Pope's

death, that the poet's popularity was due to a certain "bladdery swell of management." "But," he concludes, "rest his memory in peace! It will very rarely be disturbed by that time he himself is ashes."-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1880, Alexander Pope (English Men of Letters), p. 128.

Hill, though he must be ranked among the literary failures of his age, was a man of some ability and vast energy, who divided his time between theatrical management, dramatic authorship, and commercial and agricultural experiments, which nearly always ended in disaster. Totally destitute of any capacity for selfcriticism, he had a thorough confidence in his own powers, and firmly believed that his name would be still remembered when posterity had the sense to realise the utter worthlessness of the works of Mr. Pope.THOMSON, CLARA LINKLATER, 1900, Samuel Richardson, A Biographical and Critical Study, p. 77.

GENERAL

In Hill is all that gen'rous souls revere, To Virtue and the Muse for ever dear. -SAVAGE, RICHARD, 1729, The Wanderer, Canto I.

I need not assure you in many words, that I join my suffrage entirely with Lord B's in general, after a fourth reading of your tragedy of "Cæsar." I think no characters were ever more nobly sustained than those of Cæsar and Brutus in particular. You excel throughout in the greatness of sentiment; and I add, that I never met with more striking sentences, or lively short reprizes. There is almost everywhere such a dignity in the scenes, that instead of pointing out any one scene, I can scarce point out any that wants it, in any degree, except you would a little raise that of the plebeians in the last act. That dignity is admirably reconciled with softness, in the scenes between Cæsar and Calputnia and all those between Cæsar and Brutus are a noble strife between greatness and humanity.-POPE, ALEXANDER, 1738, Letter to Hill, July 21; Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vol. x, p. 61.

When noble thoughts with language pure unite,

To give to kindred excellence its right, Though unencumber'd with the clogs of rhyme,

Where tinkling sounds for want of meaning chime,

Which, like the rocks in Shannon's midway

course,

Divide the sense, and interrupt its force; Well may we judge so strong and clear a rill Flows higher from the Muses' sacred Hill. -RICHARDSON, SAMUEL, c1750, Epigram. The play ["Merope"] is certainly the master-piece of Hill, though in many places he retains a swell expression, and an affectation of strength, which destroy all ease and grace; yet he is more natural and simple in his language, upon the whole, in this play, than in any of his dramatic compositions. The second act is finely written. The scenes between Merope and Eumenes is a beautiful exertion of genius, in describing the workings of natural affection in a son and mother unknown to each other.-DAVIES, THOMAS, 1780, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, vol. 1, p. 147.

His poetry is in general both pompous and empty enough; and of all he has written, almost the only passage that is now much remembered is a satiric sketch of Pope, in a few lines which have some imitative smartness, but scarcely any higher merit. CRAIK, GEORGE L., 1861, A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, vol. II, p. 283.

Although an author of very eccentric genius, whose pen was said to have treated every subject from the Creation to the Day of Judgment (both inclusive), had in him a nobility of soul which shut out anything impure or mean from his literary efforts.-WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1875-99, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, p. 430.

Wrote some original dramas, which entitled him, no less than his poems, to the niche he has obtained in the "Dunciad."-CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers.

Few men indeed so well known in his own day have sunk into such insignificance in ours. . . . As a poet Hill has the facility in composition exhibited by so many of his contemporaries, and he has occasionally a pretty turn of fancy.-DENNIS, JOHN, 1894, The Age of Pope, pp. 104, 106.

A considerable literary dictator in his day, the name of Aaron Hill is now one of the obscurest in the annals of eighteenth century authorship.-BAYNE, WILLIAM, 1898, James Thomson (Famous Scots Series), p. 53.