2 them for a very high species of excellence, and recommends them as the genuine effusions of the mind, which expresses a real passion in the language of nature'. But the truth is these elegies have neither passion, nature, nor manners. Where there is fiction, there is no passion; he that describes himself as a shepherd, and his Neæra or Delia 3 as a shepherdess, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no passion. He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery deserves to lose her; for she may with good reason suspect his sincerity. Hammond has few sentiments drawn from nature, and few images from modern life. He produces nothing but frigid pedantry. It would be hard to find in all his productions three stanzas that deserve to be remembered. Like other lovers he threatens the lady with dying 5; and what 7 then shall follow? 'Wilt thou in tears thy lover's corse attend; With eyes averted light the solemn pyre, To sooth the hovering soul be thine the care, And cull my ashes with thy trembling hand: Panchaia's odours be their costly feast, And all the pride of Asia's fragrant year; And, what is still more precious, give thy tear'.' Surely no blame can fall upon the nymph who rejected a swain of so little meaning. His verses are not rugged, but they have no sweetness: they 8 I 'It was nature and sentiment only that dictated to a real mistress, not youthful and poetic fancy to an imaginary one.' Eng. Poets, xxxix. 309. * 'I saw Neaera, and her instant slave, Though born a Briton, hugg'd the servile chain.' Ib. p. 311. 3 'No wakeful guard, no doors to stop desire, Thrice happy times!—But oh! I'll do.-I'll plough or dig, as never glide in a stream of melody. Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten syllables elegiack it is difficult to tell. The character of the elegy is gentleness and tenuity, but this stanza has been pronounced by Dryden, whose knowledge of English metre was not inconsiderable, to be the most magnificent of all the measures which our language affords1. 'Johnson quotes this opinion of Dryden (ante, DRYDEN, 24), with the variance of majestic for magnificent. Dryden says of Annus Mirabilis : -'I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us.' Works, ix. 92. SOMERVILE F Mr. SOMERVILE's life I am not able to say any thing 1 that can satisfy curiosity'. He was a gentleman whose estate was in Warwickshire: his 2 house, where he was born in 16922, is called Edston, a seat inherited from a long line of ancestors; for he was said to be of the first family in his county 3. He tells of himself that he was born near the Avon's banks *. He was bred at Winchesterschool, and was elected fellow of New College. It does not appear that in the places of his education he exhibited any uncommon proofs of genius or literature. His powers were first displayed in the country, where he was distinguished as a poet, a gentleman, and a skilful and useful Justice of the Peace". Of the close of his life, those whom his poems have delighted 3 will read with pain the following account, copied from the letters of his friend Shenstone, by whom he was too much resembled 7. -Our old friend Somervile is dead! I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this occasion.— 1 His Life is not in Biog. Brit. 2 The Chace was published in 1735. Gent. Mag. 1735, p. 279. In it Somervile says:-'I run over in my elbow-chair some of those chaces which were once the delight of a more vigorous age.' Eng. Poets, xl. 6. Shenstone, in the letter below, 'imputes his foibles to age.' William Somervile matriculated at New College, Oxford, on Aug. 24, 1694, aged 18. Alumni Oxon. He was born therefore in 1675 or 1676. [First ed. does not give date of birth.] 3 He describes himself as 'A squire well-born and six foot high.' Eng. Poets, xl. 215. 'Born near Avona's winding stream.' Ib. p. 182. The brook which flows through Edston falls into an affluent of the Avon. Edston is five miles north of Stratford. 5 He became a Fellow in 1694, matriculating at the same date. He was of Founder's kin, and, as such, had not only a preference in the election but was exempted from the two years of Probationary Fellowship. He resigned in 1704, on the death of his father. There is no trace of his taking his B.A. or M.A. degrees, though both were enjoined by the statutes *. For the elections to Fellowships see post, COLLINS, 3. In the first edition the paragraph concludes:-'He was bred at Winchester-school, but I know not whether he was of any university. I have never heard of him but as a poet, a country gentleman, and a skilful,' &c. In improvidence. Post, SHENSTONE, 14. * From information received from Messrs. P. E. Matheson and R. S. Rait, Fellows of New College. 4 "Sublatum quærimus." I can now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age, and to distress of circumstances: the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on 2. For a man of high spirit, conscious of having (at least in one production) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense: to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body in order to get rid of the pains of the mind3, is a misery.' He died July 19, 17425, and was buried at Wotton, near Henley on Arden. His distresses need not be much pitied: his estate is said to be fifteen hundred a year, which by his death has devolved to lord Somervile of Scotland". His mother indeed, who lived till ninety, had a jointure of six hundred. 5 It is with regret that I find myself not better enabled to exhibit memorials of a writer, who at least must be allowed to have set a good example to men of his own class by devoting part of his time to elegant knowledge, and who has shewn, by the subjects which his poetry has adorned, that it is practicable to be at once a skilful sportsman and a man of letters 3. 6 Somervile has tried many modes of poetry; and though perhaps he has not in any reached such excellence as to raise much envy, it may commonly be said at least that he writes very well for a gentleman'. His serious pieces are sometimes * 'Virtutem incolumem odimus, Sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi.' HORACE, Odes, iii. 24. 31. 'Though living virtue we despise, We follow her, when dead, with envious eyes.' FRANCIS. 2 'Shenstone has described his private character in one of those happy sentences which, being once heard,is never to be forgotten. "I loved Mr. Somervile, because he knew so perfectly what belonged to the floccinauci-nihili-pilification of money [Shenstone's Works, 1791, ii. 138].” SOUTHEY, Specimens, &c. i. 405. 3 ""I wonder," said Mrs. Williams, "what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves!" "I wonder, Madam," replied the Doctor, "that you have not penetration enough to see the strong inducement to this excess; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. John. Misc. ii. 333. The sentence continues:-'which I can well conceive, because I may, 7 In Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerages, 1883 (p. 620), under BARON SOMERVILLE, it is stated that, 'in consideration of certain sums applied to the relief of burdens, the poet settled the reversions of his estate upon Lord Somerville [the thirteenth baron of that title].' 8 In the first edition the following passage came next :- The compilers of this collection have neglected the order of time, and placed those pieces first which were written last. The occasional poems were written long before his Chace. 9 Johnson, speaking of the Earl of Carlisle as a candidate for literary elevated, and his trifles are sometimes elegant. In his verses to Addison the couplet which mentions Clio is written with the most exquisite delicacy of praise; it exhibits one of those happy strokes that are seldom attained. In his Odes to Marlborough2 there are beautiful lines; but in the second Ode he shews that he knew little of his hero, when he talks of his private virtues 3. His subjects are commonly such as require no great depth of thought or energy of expression. His Fables are generally stale, and therefore excite no curiosity. Of his favourite, The Two Springs, the fiction is unnatural, and the moral inconsequential. In his Tales there is too much coarseness, with too little care of language, and not sufficient rapidity of narration. His great work is his Chace, which he undertook in his 7 maturer age, when his ear was improved to the approbation of blank verse, of which, however, his two first lines give a bad specimen. To this poem praise cannot be totally denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to write with great intelligence of his subject, which is the first requisite to excellence; and though it is impossible to interest the common readers of verse in the dangers or pleasures of the chase, he has done all that transition and variety could easily effect, and has with great propriety enlarged his plan by the modes of hunting used in other countries 7. With still less judgement did he chuse blank verse as the 8 vehicle of Rural Sports. If blank verse be not tumid and |