His interpofition of a long paragraph of blank verfes is unwarrantably licentious. Latin poets might as well have introduced a feries of iambicks among their heroicks.

His next work is the tranflation of the Art of Poetry; which has received, in my opinion, not less praise than it deferves. Blank verse, left merely to its numbers, has little operation either on the ear or mind: it can hardly fupport itself without bold figures and striking images. A poem frigidly didactick, without rhyme, is fo near to profe, that the reader only scorns it for pretending to be verse.

Having difentangled himself from the difficulties of rhyme, he may juftly be expected to give the fenfe of Horace with great exactness, and to fupprefs no fubtilty of fentiment for the difficulty of expreffing it. This demand, however, his tranflation will not fatisfy; what he found obfcure, I do not know that he has ever cleared.

Among his fmaller works, the Eclogue of Virgil and the Dies Ira are well translated; though

though the best line in the Dies Ira is borrowed from Dryden. In return, fucceeding poets have borrowed from Rofcommon.

In the verses on the Lap-dog, the pronouns thou and you are offenfively confounded; and the turn at the end is from Waller.

His verfions of the two odes of Horace are made with great liberty, which is not recom pensed by much elegance or vigour.

His political verfes are fpritely, and when they were written must have been very popular.

Of the scene of Guarini, and the prologue of Pompey, Mrs. Philips, in her letters to Sir Charles Cotterel, has given the history.

46

"Lord Rofcommon," fays fhe, "is certainly one of the most promifing young no❝blemen in Ireland. He has paraphrased a "Pfalm admirably, and a scene of Paftor Fido very finely, in fome places much better than "Sir Richard Fanfhaw. This was underta"ken merely in compliment to me, who hap"perred

66

Y 4

pened to say that it was the best scene in "Italian, and the worst in English. "was only two hours about it. It begins "thus:

He

"Dear happy groves, and you the dark retreat "Of filent horrour, Reft's eternal feat."

From thefe lines, which are fince fomewhat mended, it appears that he did not think a work of two hours fit to endure the eye of criticism without revifal.

When Mrs. Philips was in Ireland, fome ladies that had seen her translation of Pompey refolved to bring it on the ftage at Dublin; and, to promote their defign, Lord Rofcommon gave them a prologue, and Sir Edward Dering an epilogue; "which," fays fhe, "are the best performances of those kinds I "ever faw." If this is not criticism, it is at least gratitude. The thought of bringing Cæfar and Pompey into Ireland, the only country over which Cæfar never had any power, is lucky.

Of Roscommon's works, the judgem entof the publick feems to be right. He is elegant,

but

*

but not great; he never labours after exquifite beauties, and he feldom falls into gross faults. His verfification is fmooth, but rarely vigorous, and his rhymes are remarkably exact. He improved tafte, if he did not enlarge knowledge, and may be numbered benefactors to English literature.

among the

OT WAY.

OTW A Y.

от

F THOMAS OTWAY, one of the

first names in the English drama, little is known; nor is there any part of that little which his biographer can take pleasure in relating.

He was born at Trottin in Suffex, March 32 1651, the fon of Mr. Humphry Otway, rector of Woolbeding. From Winchester-school, where he was educated, he was entered, in 1669, a commoner of Christ-church; but left the university without a degree, whether for want of money, or from impatience of academical restraint, or mere eagerness to mingle with the world, is not known.

It seems likely that he was in hope of being bufy and confpicuous: for he went to Lon