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published in 1793. This Mr. Murphy executed under the title (which he had used in the case of Fielding) of An Essay on the Life and Genius of Dr. Johnson; but he had conceived a 'prejudice of jealousy of Mr. Boswell's fame, and notwithstanding the latter had strengthened his narrative by every possible proof, Murphy persisted in taking his facts from the very inaccurate narrative of sir John Hawkins, and the more flippant anecdotes published by Mrs. Piozzi. In his Essay, therefore, it is not wonderful that many circumstances are grossly, and considering that proofs were within his reach, we may add, wilfully misrepresented". As Dr. Johnson has been introduced in the present collection as an English poet, it may be necessary to take some notice of the poems now presented to the reader. They are what have been published in his works, and no doubts, as far as the present writer knows, have ever been entertained of their authenticity. What he might have produced, if he had devoted himself to the Muses, it is not easy to determine. That he had not the essentials of a poet of the higher order must, I think, be allowed; but as a moral poet, his acknowledged pieces stand in a very high rank. Like Pope, he preferred reason to fancy, and his two imitations of Juvenal are not only equal to any thing that writer has produced, in the happy delineation of living manners, and in elegance of versification, but are perhaps superior to any compositions of the kind in our language. His Irene is remarkable for splendour of language, richness of sentiment, and harmony of numbers, but as a tragedy it is radically defective: it excites neither interest or passion. Of his lesser pieces, the Prologue on Opening the Theatre in 1747, and that for the benefit of Milton's grand-daughter, are perfect models of elegant and manly address. His odes are defective in imagination and description; he always undervalued this species of poetry, and certainly has not improved it. A few of his translations are more happily executed, particularly the Dove of Anacreon. The poem on the death of his humble friend Levet is one of those pathetic appeals to the heart which are irresistible.

The principal of these are corrected in notes appended to the last edition of Johnson's works. Murphy's narrative was in truth little more than what was compiled in 1787, from sir John Hawkins, by the Monthly Reviewers, whose style and reflections he has in general copied verbatim, without a word of acknowledgment. C.

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THE

LIFE OF GLOVER,

BY MR. CHALMERS.

THE facts, in the following narrative, are principally taken from an account of our poet drawn up by Mr. Reed, a gentleman of well-known accuracy and information, and inserted in the European Magazine for January, 1786.

Richard Glover, the son of Richard Glover, a Hamburgh merchant in London, was born in St. Martin's Lane, Cannon Street, in the year 1712. Being probably intended for trade, he received no other education than what the school of Cheam, in Surry, afforded, which he was afterwards induced to improve by an ardent love of learning, and a desire to cultivate his poetical talents according to the purest models. His poetical efforts were very early, for in his sixteenth year he wrote a poem to the memory of sir Isaac Newton, which was supposed to have merit enough to deserve a place in the View of that celebrated author's philosophy, published in 1728, by Dr. Henry Pemberton.

Dr. Pemberton, a man of much science, and of some taste, appears to have been warmly attached to the interests of our young poet, and at a time when there were few regular vehicles of praise or criticism, took every opportunity of encouraging his efforts, and apprising the nation of this new addition to its literary honours. Of the poem in question, he thus speaks, in his preface: "I have presented my readers with a copy of verses on sir Isaac Newton, which I have just received from a young gentleman, whom I am proud to reckon among the number of my dearest friends. If I had any apprehension that this piece of poetry stood in need of an apology, I should be desirous the reader might know that the author is but sixteen years old, and was obliged to finish the composition in a very short space of time, but I shall only take the liberty to observe, that the boldness of the digressions will be best judged of by those who are acquainted with Pindar." The poem is now before the reader, who if he thinks this praise too high, will yet reflect with pleasure that it probably cheered the youthful ambition of the author of Leonidas.

At the usual period, Glover became engaged in the Hamburgh trade, but continued his attachment to literature and the Muses, and was, says Dr. Warton, one of the best and most accurate Greek scholars of his time. It has been mentioned in the life of Green, that he published The Spleen of that poet, in which he is complimented on

account of his study of the ancient Greek poets, and his wish to emulate their fame. Green had probably seen some part of Leonidas, which was begun when the author was young, and had been submitted in specimens to many of his friends'.

Leonidas was first published in 1737, in a quarto volume, consisting of nine books. Its reception was highly flattering, for in this and the following year it passed through three editions. It was dedicated to lord Cobham, one of his early patrons, and whom, it is supposed, he furnished with many of the inscriptions at Stowe. It was also strongly recommended by such of that nobleman's political friends as were esteemed the arbiters of taste. Lord Lyttelton, in the periodical paper called Common Sense, praised it in the warmest terms, not only for its poetical beauties, but its political tendency, "the whole plan and purpose of it being to show the superiority of freedom over slavery; and how much virtue, public spirit, and the love of liberty are preferable both in their nature and effects, to riches, luxury, and the insolence of power."

This is perhaps too much like the criticism of Bossu on the Iliad: but the following passage is more appropriate, and as the papers in which it appeared are now scarce, may be introduced here without impropriety.

"The artful conduct of the principal design; the skill in connecting and adapting every episode to the carrying on, and serving that design; the variety of characters, the great care to keep them, and distinguish each from the other by a propriety of sentiment and thought, all these are excellencies which the best judges of poetry will be particularly pleased with in Leonidas. I must observe too, that even those who are not naturally fond of poetry, or any work of fancy, will find in this so much solidity of reason, such good sense, weight of thought, and depth of learning; will see every virtue, public or private, so agreeably and forcibly inculcated, that they may read it with delight and with instruction, though they have no relish for the graces of the verse, the harmony of the numbers, or the charms of the invention.

"Upon the whole, I look upon this poem as one of those few of distinguished worth and excellence, which will be handed down with respect to all posterity, and which in the long revolution of past centuries, but two or three countries have been able to produce. And I cannot help congratulating my own, that after having in the last age brought forth a Milton, she has in this produced two more such poets, as we have the happiness to see flourish now together, I mean Mr. Pope and Mr. Glover. The first of these has no superior, if an equal, in all the various parts of poetry, to which his elegant and extensive genius has applied itself, no, not among the greatest of the ancients. But an epic poem he has not yet given, of his own I mean, distinct from his translations. And certainly, in that species of writing, it is enough to have given Homer to us, with a force of style not inferior to his own: the bounds of human life are too contracted for a second work so difficult as this: I might add, perhaps, the bounds of human glory. There was therefore a path left clear for Mr. Glover; and to what a height it has carried him, will appear to all who have eyes good enough to reach so far; for your judges of epigrams and songs can see no further than the bottom of the hill, and both he and Mr. Pope are out of their sight. But it must be owned that the latter had made the way much less difficult for Mr. Glover to ascend, by smoothing the rougliness, and rooting up the thorns and briars which the English Parnassus was encumbered with before: so that if

1 When Thomson was told that Glover was writing an epic poem, he exclaimed-" He write an epic poem! a Londoner, who has never seen a mountain!" Warton,

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