the moderns is compared, Tasso and Guarini are censured for remote thoughts and unnatural refinements; and, upon the whole, the Italians and French are all excluded from rural poetry; and the pipe of the pastoral muse is transmitted, by lawful inheritance, from Theocritus to Virgil, from Virgil to Spenser, and from Spenser to Philips.

With this inauguration of Philips, his rival Pope was not much delighted; he, therefore, drew a comparison of Philips's performance with his own, in which, with an unexampled and unequalled artifice of irony, though he has himself always the advantage, he gives the preference to Philips. The design of aggrandizing himself he disguised with such dexterity, that, though Addison discovered it, Steele was deceived, and was afraid of displeasing Pope by publishing his paper. Published, however, it was, (Guardian, 40,) and from that time Pope and Philips lived in a perpetual reciprocation of malevolence.

In poetical powers, of either praise or satire, there was no proportion between the combatants; but Philips, though he could not prevail by wit, hoped to hurt Pope with another weapon, and charged him, as Pope thought, with Addison's approbation, as disaffected to the government.

Even with this he was not satisfied; for, indeed, there is no appearance that any regard was paid to his clamours. He proceeded to grosser insults, and hung up a rod at Button's, with which he threatened to chastise Pope, who appears to have been extremely exasperated; for, in the first edition of his letters, he calls Philips "rascal," and in the last still charges him with detaining, in his hands, the subscriptions for Homer, delivered to him by the Hanover club.

I suppose it was never suspected that he meant to appropriate the money; he only delayed, and with sufficient meanness, the gratification of him by whose prosperity he was pained.

Men sometimes suffer by injudicious kindness; Philips became ridiculous, without his own fault, by the absurd admiration of his friends, who decorated him with honorary garlands, which the first breath of contradiction blasted.

When upon the succession of the house of Hanover every whig expected to be happy, Philips seems to have obtained too little notice; he caught few drops of the golden shower, though he did not omit what flattery could perform. He was only made a commissioner of the lottery, 1717, and, what did not much elevate his character, a justice of the peace.

The success of his first play must naturally dispose him to turn his hopes towards the stage: he did not, however, soon commit himself to the mercy of an audience, but contented himself with the fame already acquired, till after nine years he produced, 1722, the Briton, a tragedy which, whatever was its reception, is now neglected; though one of the scenes, between Vanoc, the British prince, and Valens, the Roman general, is confessed to be written with great dramatick skill, animated by spirit truly poetical.

He had not been idle, though he had been silent: for he exhibited another tragedy the same year, on the story of Humphry, duke of Gloucester. This tragedy is only remembered by its title.

His happiest undertaking was of a paper, called the Freethinker, in conjunction with associates, of whom one was Dr. Boulter, who, then only minister of a parish in Southwark, was of so much consequence to the government, that he was made, first, bishop of Bristol, and, afterwards, primate of Ireland, where his piety and his charity will be long honoured.

It may easily be imagined that what was printed under the direction of Boulter would have nothing in it indecent or licentious; its title is to be understood as implying only freedom from unreasonable prejudice. It has been reprinted in volumes, but is little read; nor can impartial criticism recommend it as worthy of revival.

Boulter was not well qualified to write diurnal essays; but he knew how to practise the liberality of greatness and the fidelity of friendship. When he was advanced to the height of ecclesiastical dignity, he did not forget the companion of his labours. Knowing Philips to be slenderly

supported, he took him to Ireland, as partaker of his fortune; and, making him his secretary", added such preferments, as enabled him to represent the county of Armagh in the Irish parliament.

In December, 1726, he was made secretary to the lord chancellor; and in August, 1733, became judge of the prerogative court.

After the death of his patron he continued some years in Ireland; but at last longing, as it seems, for his native country, he returned, 1748, to London, having, doubtless, survived most of his friends and enemies, and among them his dreaded antagonist, Pope. He found, however, the duke of Newcastle still living, and to him he dedicated his poems, collected into a volume.

Having purchased an annuity of four hundred pounds, he now certainly hoped to pass some years of life in plenty and tranquillity; but his hope deceived him; he was struck with a palsy, and died June 18, 1749, in his seventyeighth year.

Of his personal character, all that I have heard is, that he was eminent for bravery and skill in the sword, and that in conversation he was solemn and pompous. He had great sensibility of censure, if judgment may be made by a single story which I heard long ago from Mr. Ing, a gentleman of great eminence in Staffordshire. " Philips," said he, was once at table, when I asked him, how came thy king of Epirus to drive oxen, and to say 'I'm goaded on by love?' After which question he never spoke again P.

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Of the Distrest Mother, not much is pretended to be his own, and, therefore, it is no subject of criticism: his other two tragedies, I believe, are not below mediocrity nor above it. Among the poems comprised in the late col

n The archbishop's letters, published in 1769, (the originals of which are now in Christ-church library, Oxford,) were collected by Mr. Philips.

• At his house in Hanover-street, and was buried in Audley chapel.

P Mr. Ing's eminence does not seem to have been derived from his wit. That the men who drive oxen are goaded, seems to be a custom peculiar to Staffordshire. J. B.

lection, the Letter from Denmark may be justly praised; the Pastorals, which, by the writer of the Guardian, were ranked as one of the four genuine productions of the rustick muse, cannot surely be despicable. That they exhibit a mode of life which does not exist, nor ever existed, is not to be objected: the supposition of such a state is allowed to pastoral. In his other poems he cannot be denied the praise of lines sometimes elegant; but he has seldom much force, or much comprehension. The pieces

that please best are those which from Pope and Pope's adherents procured him the name of Namby Pamby, the poems of short lines, by which he paid his court to all ages and characters, from Walpole, " the steerer of the realm," to Miss Pulteney in the nursery. The numbers are smooth and sprightly, and the diction is seldom faulty. They are not loaded with much thought, yet, if they had been written by Addison, they would have had admirers: little things are not valued but when they are done by those who can do greater.

In his translations from Pindar, he found the art of reaching all the obscurity of the Theban bard, however he may fall below his sublimity; he will be allowed, if he has less fire, to have more smoke.

He has added nothing to English poetry, yet, at least, half his book deserves to be read: perhaps he valued most himself that part which the critick would reject.

WEST.

GILBERT WEST is one of the writers of whom I regret my inability to give a sufficient account; the intelligence which my inquiries have obtained is general and scanty. He was the son of the reverend Dr. West; perhaps him who published Pindar, at Oxford, about the beginning of this century. His mother was sister to sir Richard Temple, afterwards lord Cobham. His father, purposing to educate him for the church, sent him first to Eton, and afterwards to Oxford; but he was seduced to a more airy mode of life, by a commission in a troop of horse, procured him by his uncle.

He continued some time in the army; though it is reasonable to suppose that he never sunk into a mere soldier, nor ever lost the love, or much neglected the pursuit, of learning; and, afterwards, finding himself more inclined to civil employment, he laid down his commission, and engaged in business under the lord Townshend, then secretary 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 state of expectation and right of succession, and it was very long before a vacancy admitted him to profit.

Soon afterwards he married, and settled 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 dissertations which accompany his version of Pindar had not been improperly omitted. Of his piety, the influence has, I hope, been extended far by his Observations on the Resurrection, published in 1747, for which the

Certainly him. It was published in 1697.