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Man, I am not furprized; it is the bufiness of the Libertine to degrade his fpecies, and debase the dignity of human nature, and thereby deftroy the most efficacious incitements to lovely and laudable actions but that a writer of Boileau's purity of manners, fhould reprefent his kind in the dark and difagreeable colours he has done, with all the malignity of a discontented HOBBIST, is a lamentable perverfion of fine talents, and is a real injury to fociety. It is a fact worthy the attention of those who study the hiftory of learning, that the grofs licentiousness and applauded debauchery of Charles the Second's court, proved almost as pernicious to the progress of polite literature and the fine arts that began to revive after the Grand Rebellion, as the gloomy fuperftition, the abfurd cant, and formal hypocrify that difgraced this nation, during the ufurpation of Cromwell *.

ARTEMISIA

* Lord Bolingbroke ufed to relate, that his Great Grandfather Ireton, and Fleetwood, being one day engaged in a private drinking party with Cromwell, and wanting

VOL. II.

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ARTEMISIA and PHRYNE are two characters in the manner of the Earl of Dorfet, an elegant writer, and amiable man, equally noted for the feverity of his fatire, and the sweetness of his manners, and who gave the fairest proof that these two qualities are by no means incompatible. The greatest wits, fays Addison, I have ever converfed with, were perfons of the best tempers. Dorfet poffeffed the rare secret of uniting energy with ease, in his striking compofitions. His verfes to Mr. Edward Howard, to Sir Thomas St. Serfe, his epilogue to the Tartuffe, his fong written at fea in the firft Dutch war, his ballad on knotting, and on Lewis XIV. may be named as examples of this happy talent, and as confutations of a fentiment of the

to uncork a bottle, they could not find their bottle-screw, which was fallen under the table. Juft at that instant, an officer entered to inform the protector, that a deputation from the prefbyterian minifters attended without. .. Tell them, fays Cromwell, with a countenance inftantly compofed, that I am retired, that I cannot be difturbed, for Į am Seeking the Lord," and turning afterwards to his companions, he added, "These fcoundrels think we are seeking the Lord, and we are only looking for our bottle-screw.”

judicious

judicious M. de Montefquieu, who in his noble chapter on the English Conftitution, Book 19, fpeaks thus of our writers. "As fociety and the mixing in company, gives to men a quicker sense of ridicule, fo retirement more difpofes men to reflect on the heinqufness of vice; the fatirical writings therefore of fuch a nation are sharp and fevere, and we fhall find among them many Juvenals, without difcovering one Horace.

THE DESCRIPTION of the LIFE of a

Country Parfon is a lively imitation of Swift*, and is full of humour. The point of the likeness confifts in defcribing the objects

See a Pipe of Tobacco, p. 282, vol. 2. Dodfley's Mifcell, where Mr. Hawkins Brown has imitated, from a hint of Dr. John Hoadly, fix later English poets with fuccefs, viz. Swift, POPE, Thomfon, Young, Phillips, Cibber. Some of these writers thinking themselves burlesqued, are faid to have been mortified. But POPE obferved on the occafion, "Brown is an excellent copyift, and those who take his imitations amifs, are much in the wrong; they are very ftrongly mannered, and few perhaps could write fo well if they were not fo. -In POPE's imitation of the fixth epiftle of Horace, there were two remarkable lines,

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objects as they really exift in life, like Hagarth's paintings, without heightening or enlarging them, and without adding any imaginary circumftances. In this way of writing, Swift excelled; witness his defcription of a morning in the city, of a city fhower, of the house of Baucis and Philemon, and the verfes on his own death. These are of the fame fpecies with the piece before us. In this alfo confifts the chief beauty of Gay's Trivia, a subject Swift defired him to write upon, and for which he furnished him with many hints. The character of Swift has been fcrutinized in fo many late writings, that it is fuperfluous to enter upon it, especially as from many materials judiciously melted down and blended together, Dr. Hawksworth

the fecond of which was thought to contain a heavy anticlimax.

Grac'd as thou art with all the power of words,

Known to the Courts, the Commons and the Lords.

The unexpected flatnefs and familiarity of the laft line was thus ridiculed by Mr. Brown with much humour.

Perfuafion tips his tongue whene'er he talks,
And-be has chambers in the King's-Bench walks.

has

has fet before the public, fo complete a figure of him. I cannot however forbear to mention a remark of Voltaire, who affirms, "that the famous Tale of a Tub is an imitation of the old story of the three invisible rings, which a father bequeathed to his three children. These three rings were the Jewish, Chriftian, and Mahometan religions. It is, moreover, an imitation of the history of Mero and Enegu, by Fontenelle *. Mero was the anagram of Rome, and Enegu of Geneva. These two fifters claimed the fucceffion to the throne of their fathers. Mero reigned first, Fontenelle represents her as a forceress or jugler who could convey away bread, and perform acts of conjuration with dead bodies: This is precifely the Lord Peter of Swift, who presents a piece of bread to his two brothers, and fays to them, This, my good friends, is excellent Burgundy, these partridges have an admirable flavour.' The

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*It was inferted by Bayle in his Nouvelles, &c. vol. v. p. 88, as a ferious narration; fo happily was the allegory disguised.

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