of inconceivable grandeur, could be fuftained by images which at most can rife only to elegance. Contending angels may fhake the regions of Heaven in blank verfe; but the flow of equal measures, and the embellishment of rhyme, muft recommend to our attention the art of engrafting, and decide the merit of the redftreak and pearmain.

What study could confer, Philips had obtained; but natural deficience cannot be fupplied. He feems not born to greatnefs and elevation. He is never lofty, nor does he often furprise with unexpected excellence; but perhaps to his laft poem may be applied what Tully faid of the work of Lucretius, that it is written with much art, though with few blazes of genius.

The following fragment, written by Edmund Smith, upon the works of Philips, has been tranfcribed from the Bodleian manufcripts.

"A Prefatory Difcourfe to the poem on Mr. Philips, with a character of his writings.

"It is altogether as equitable fome account should be given of those who have diftinguished themselves by their writings, as of thofe who are renowned for great actions. It is but reasonable they, who contribute fo much to the immortality of others, fhould have fome fhare in it themselves; and fince their genius only is difcovered by their works, it is just that their virtues fhould be recorded by their friends. For no modeft men (as the perfon I write of was in perfection) will write their own panegyricks; and it is very hard that they should go without reputation, only because they the more deferve it. The end of

6

writ

writing Lives is for the imitation of the readers. It will be in the power of very few to imitate the Duke of Marlborough; we must be content with admiring his great qualities and actions, without hopes of fol lowing them. The private and focial virtues are more eafily transcribed. The Life of Cowley is more instructive, as well as more fine, than any we . have in our language. And it is to be wifhed, fince Mr. Philips had fo many of the good qualities of that poet, that I had fome of the abilities of his hiftorian.

The Grecian philofophers have had their Lives written, their morals commended, and their sayings recorded. Mr. Philips had all the virtues to which most of them only pretended, and all their integrity without any of their affectation.

The French are very juft to eminent men in this point; not a learned man nor a poet can die, but all Europe must be acquainted with his accomplishments. They give praise and expect it in their turns: they commend their Patrus and Molieres as well as their Condés and Turennes; their Pellifons and Racineshave their elogies, as well as the prince whom they celebrate; and their poems, their mercuries, and orations, nay their very gazettes, are filled with the praises of the learned.

I am fatisfied, had they a Philips among them, and known how to value him; had they one of his learning, his temper, but above all of that particular turn of humour, that altogether new genius, he had been an example to their poets, and a fubject of their panegyricks, and perhaps fet in competition with the ancients, to whom only he ought to fubmit.

I fhall

I fhall therefore endeavour to do juftice to his memory, fince nobody else undertakes it. And indeed I can affign no cause why so many of his acquaintance (that are as willing and more able than myself to give an account of him) fhould forbear to celebrate the memory of one fo dear to them, but only that they look upon it as a work entirely belonging to me.

I fhall content my felf with giving only a character of the perfon and his writings, without meddling with the tranfactions of his life, which was altoge ther private: I fhall only make this known obfervation of his family, that there was scarcely so many extraordinary men in any one. I have been acquainted with five of his brothers (of which three are ftill living), all men of fine parts, yet all of a very unlike temper and genius. So that their fruitful mother, like the mother of the gods, feems to have produced a numerous offspring, all of different though uncommon faculties. Of the living, neither their modesty nor the humour of the prefent age, permits me to speak: of the dead, I may fay fomething.

One of them had made the greatest progress in the study of the law of nature and nations of any one I know. He had perfectly mastered, and even improved, the notions of Grotius, and the more refined ones of Puffendorff. He could refute Hobbes with as much folidity as fome of greater name, and expose him with as much wit as Echard. That noble tudy, which requires the greatest reach of reason and nicety of diftinction, was not at all difficult to him. 'Twas a national lofs to be deprived of one who understood a fcience fo neceffary, and yet fo

unknown

unknown in England. I fhall add only, he had the fame honefty and fincerity as the perfon I write of, but more heat: the former was more inclined to argue, the latter to divert: one employed his reafon more; the other his imagination: the former had been well qualified for thofe pofts, which the modefty of the latter made him refufe. His other dead brother would have been an ornament to the college of which he was a member. He had a genius either for poetry or oratory; and, though very young, compofed feveral very agreeable pieces. In all probability he would have wrote as finely as his brother did nobly. He might have been the Waller, as the other was the Milton, of his time. The one might celebrate Marlborough, the other his beautiful offspring. This had not been fo fit to defcribe the actions of heroes as the virtues of private men. In a word, he had been fitter for my place; and, while his brother was writing upon the greatest men that any age ever produced, in a ftyle equal to them, he might have ferved as a panegyrift on him.

This is all I think neceffary to fay of his family. I fhall proceed to himself and his writings; which I fhall first treat of, because I know they are cenfured by fome out of envy, and more out of ignorance.

The Splendid Shilling, which is far the leaft confiderable, has the more general reputation, and perhaps hinders the character of the reft. The ftyle agreed fo well with the burlefque, that the ignorant thought it could become nothing elfe. Every body is pleafed with that work. But to judge rightly of the other requires a perfect maftery of poetry and criticism, a juft contempt of the little turns and VOL. IX.

X

witti

witticisms now in vogue, and, above all, a perfect understanding of poetical diction and description.

All that have any tafte of poetry will agree, that the great burlesque is much to be preferred to the low. It is much easier to make a great thing appear little, than a little one great: Cotton and others of a very low genius have done the former; but Philips, Garth, and Boileau, only the latter.

A picture in miniature is every painter's talent; but a piece for a cupola, where all the figures are enlarged, yet proportioned to the eye, requires a mafter's hand.

It must still be more acceptable than the low burlefque, because the images of the latter are mean and filthy, and the language itself entirely unknown to all men of good breeding. The ftyle of Billingsgate would not make a very agreeable figure at St. James's. A gentleman would take but little pleasure in language, which he would think it hard to be accofted in, or in reading words which he could not pronounce without blufhing. The lofty burlefque is the more to be admired, becaufe, to write it, the author must be mafter of two of the moft different talents in nature. A talent to find out and expofe what is ridiculous, is very different from that which. is to raise and elevate. We must read Virgil and Milton for the one, and Horace and Hudibras, for the other. We know that the authors of excellent comedies have often failed in the grave style, and the tragedian as often in comedy. Admiration and Laughter are of fuch oppofite natures, that they are feldom created by the fame perfon. The man of mirth is always obferving the follies and weakneffes, the

ferious