air of concealment, profeffing in the titlepage to be printed at Antwerp. Of fome of the pieces, however, there is no doubt. The Imitation of Horace's Satire, the Verfes to Lord Mulgrave, the Satire against Man, the Verfes upon Nothing, and perhaps fome others, are I believe genuine, and perhaps most of those which this collection exhibits. As he cannot be fuppofed to have found leisure for any courfe of continued study, his pieces are commonly fhort, fuch as one fit of refolution would produce. His fongs have no particular character: they tell, like other fongs, in smooth and eafy language, of fcorn and kindness, difmiffion and desertion, ab fence fence and inconftancy, with the common places of artificial courtship. They are commonly smooth and eafy; but have little nature, and little fentiment. His imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not inelegant or unhappy. In the reign of Charles the Second began that adaptation, which has fince been very frequent, of ancient poetry to present times, and perhaps few will be found where the parallelifm is better preferved than in this. The verfification is indeed fometimes carelefs, but it is fometimes vigorous and weighty. his The ftrongest effort of his Mufe is poem upon Nothing. He is not the first who has chofen this barren topick for the boaft of his fertility. There ย is a poem called Nibit in Latin by Paf ferat, a poet and critick of the fixteenth century in France; who, in his own epi taph, expreffes his zeal for good poetry 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 muft be confidered as having not only a negative but a kind of pofitive fignification; as, I need not fear thieves, I have nothing; and nothing is a very powerful protector. In the firft part of the fentence it is taken negatively; in the the fecond it is taken pofitively, as an agent. In one of Boileau's lines it. was a queftion, whether he should use a rien faire, or a ne rien faire; and the firft was preferred, because it gave rien a fenfe in fome fort pofitive. Nothing can be a fubject only in its positive sense, and fuch a fenfe is given it in the first. line: Nothing, thou elder brother ev'n to fhade. 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 Shade, concludes with a poem in which are thefe lines: Jám Jam primum terram validis circumfpice clauftris Sufpenfam totam, deeus admirabile mundi Terrafque tractufque maris, campofque liquentes Aeris, & vafti laqueata palatia cœliOmnibus UMBRA prior. The pofitive fense is generally preferved, with great fkill, through the whole poem; though fometimes, in a fubordinate sense, the negative nothing is injudiciously mingled. Pafferat confounds the two fenfes. Another of his most vigorous pieces is his Lampoon on Sir Car Scroop, who, |