own epitaph, expreffes his zeal for good poe try thus: -Molliter offa quiefcent Sint modo carminibus non onerata malis. His works are not common, and therefore I fhall fubjoin his verses. In examining this performance, Nothing must be confidered as having not only a negative but a kind of positive fignification; as I need not fear thieves, I have nothing, and nothing is a very powerful protector. In the first part of the fentence it is taken negatively; in the fecond it is taken pofitively, as an agent. In one of Boileau's lines it was a queftion, whether he should use à rien faire, or à ne rien faire; and the first was preferred because it gave rien a sense in some fort pofitive. Nothing can be a fubject only in its pofitive fenfe, and fuch a fenfe is given it in the first line: Nothing, thou elder brother ev'n to shade. In this line, I know not whether he does not allude to a curious book de Umbra, by Wowerus, which, having told the qualities of of Shade, concludes with a poem, in which are these lines: Jam primum terram validis circumfpice clauftris. The pofitive fenfe is generally preferved, with great fkill, through the whole poem ; though fometimes in a fubordinate fenfe, the negative nothing is injudicioufly mingled. Pafferat confounds the two fenfes. Another of his moft vigorous pieces is his Lampoon on Sir Car Scroop, who, in a poem called The Praife of Satire, had fome lines like thefe * He who can pufh into a midnight fray This was meant of Rochester, whose buffoon conceit was, I suppose, a faying often * I quote from memory. Dr. J. X 2 mentioned, mentioned, that every Man would be a coward if he durft; and drew from him thofe furious. verfes; to which Scroop made in reply an epigram, ending with thefe lines: Thou canft hurt no man's fame with thy ill word; Thy pen is full as harmlefs as thy fword. Of the fatire against Man, Rochester can only claim what remains when all Boileau's part is taken away. In all his works there is fpritelinefs and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind which ftudy might have carried to excellence. What more can be expected from a life fpent in oftentatious contempt of regu larity, and ended before the abilities of other men began to be displayed? many Poema i Poema CI. V. JOANNIS PASSERATII, Regii in Academia Parifienfi Profefforis, Ad ornatiffimum virum ERRICUM MEMMIUM. Janus adeft, feftæ pofcunt fua dona Kalendæ, Ufque adeò ingenii noftri eft exhausta facultas, Aufoniæ indictum NIHIL eft Græcæque Camoenæ, Justum in pace NIHIL, NIHIL eft in foedere tutum. 3 Humano |