mother to Worcester, and owned and acknowledged as her legitimate son, which had not been mentioned, but to wipe off the aspersions that were ignorantly cast by some on his birth. It is to be remembered for our author's honour that when at Westminster election he stood a candidate for one of the universities, he so signally distinguished himself by his conspicuous performances, that there arose no small contention between the representative electors of Trinity-college in Cambridge and Christ-church in Oxon, which of those two royal societies should adopt him as their own. But the electors of Trinity-college having the preference of choice that year, they resolutely elected him, who yet, being invited at the same time to Christ-church, chose to accept of a studentship there'. Mr. Smith's perfections, as well natural as acquired, seem to have been formed upon Horace's plan, who says in his Art of Poetry "Ego nec studium sine divite venâ, Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium: alterius sic 5 'He was endowed by Nature with all those excellent and 'He had a quickness of apprehension and vivacity of understanding which easily took in and surmounted the most subtle and knotty parts of mathematicks and metaphysicks. His wit was prompt and flowing, yet solid and piercing; his taste delicate, his head clear, and his way of expressing his thoughts perspicuous and engaging. I shall say nothing of his person, which yet was so well turned that no neglect of himself in his dress could render it disagreeable; insomuch that the fair sex, who observed and esteemed him, at once commended and reproved him by the I By the statutes of Queen Elizabeth 'three scholars of Westminster at least were to be elected annually on to the foundation of Christ Church and three to the foundation of Trinity.' The Dean of Christ Church, the Master of Trinity, and a Master of Arts of each College formed four of the seven electors. From the beginning boys preferred Oxford to Cambridge. A studentship at Christ Church was of considerable value, and wastenable until marriage or promotion. At Trinity a boy began as a Pensioner, and when, after a year's interval, he obtained a scholarship, he found it name of the handsome sloven. An eager but generous and noble emulation grew up with him, which (as it were a rational sort of instinct) pushed him upon striving to excel in every art and science that could make him a credit to his college, and that college the ornament of the most learned and polite university; and it was his happiness to have several contemporaries and fellowstudents who exercised and excited this virtue in themselves and others, thereby becoming so deservedly in favour with this age, and so good a proof of its nice discernment. His judgement, naturally good, soon ripened into an exquisite fineness and distinguishing sagacity, which as it was active and busy so it was vigorous and manly, keeping even paces with a rich and strong imagination, always upon the wing, and never tired with aspiring. Hence it was that, though he writ as young as Cowley, he had no puerilities; and his earliest productions were so far from having any thing in them mean and trifling that, like the junior compositions of Mr. Stepney, they may make grey authors blush. There are many of his first essays in oratory, in epigram, elegy, and epique still handed about the university in manuscript, which shew a masterly hand; and, though maimed and injured by frequent transcribing, make their way into our most celebrated miscellanies, where they shine with uncommon lustre. Besides those verses in the Oxford books, which he could not help setting his name to, several of his compositions came abroad under other names, which his own singular modesty and faithful silence strove in vain to conceal. The Encaenia and public Collections of the University upon State Subjects were never in such esteem, either for elegy or congratulation, as when he contributed most largely to them; and it was natural for those who knew his peculiar way of writing to turn to his share in the work, as by far the most relishing part of the entertainment. As his parts were extraordinary, so he well knew how to improve them; and not only to polish the diamond, but enchase it in the most solid and durable metal. Though he was an academick the greatest part of his life, yet he contracted no sourness of temper, no spice of pedantry, no itch of disputation, or obstinate contention for the old or new philosophy, no assuming way of dictating to others; which are faults (though excusable) which some are insensibly led into, who are constrained to dwell long within the walls of a private college. His conversation was pleasant and instructive, and what Horace said of Plotius, Varius, and Virgil might justly be applied to him: "Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus Amico 2." 'Ante, STEPNEY, 3. 2 Sat. i. 5. 44. 'For sure no blessing in the power of Can be compared in sanity of mind fate 7 8 9 'As correct a writer as he was in his most elaborate pieces he read the works of others with candour, and reserved his greatest severity for his own compositions; being readier to cherish and advance than damp or depress a rising genius, and as patient of being excelled himself (if any could excel him) as industrious to excel others. "Twere to be wished he had confined himself to a particular profession, who was capable of surpassing in any; but in this his want of application was in a great measure owing to his want of due encouragement. 'He passed through the exercises of the college and university with unusual applause, and though he often suffered his friends to call him off from his retirements and to lengthen out those jovial avocations, yet his return to his studies was so much the more passionate, and his intention upon those refined pleasures of reading and thinking so vehement (to which his facetious and unbended intervals bore no proportion), that the habit grew upon him, and the series of meditation and reflection being kept up whole weeks together he could better sort his ideas and take in the sundry parts of a science at one view without interruption or confusion. Some indeed of his acquaintance, who were pleased to distinguish between the wit and the scholar, extolled him altogether on the account of the first of these titles; but others, who knew him better, could not forbear doing him justice as a prodigy in both kinds. He had signalized himself in the schools, as a philosopher and polemick of extensive knowledge and deep penetration, and went through all the courses with a wise regard to the dignity and importance of each science. I remember him in the Divinity-school responding and disputing with a perspicuous energy, a ready exactness, and commanding force of argument, when Dr. Jane worthily presided in the chair1; whose condescending and disinterested commendation of him gave him such a reputation as silenced the envious malice of his enemies, who durst not contradict the approbation of so profound a master in theology. None of those self-sufficient creatures, who have either trifled with philosophy by attempting to ridicule it, or have encumbered it with novel terms and burdensome explanations, understood its real weight and purity half so well as Mr. Smith. He was too discerning to allow of the character of unprofitable, rugged, and abstruse, which some superficial sciolists (so very smooth and polite as to admit of no impression), either out of an unthinking indolence or an ill-grounded prejudice, had affixed to this sort of studies. He ' William Jane was Regius Professor of Divinity from 1680 to 1707. 'He had borne the chief part in framing that decree by which his University ordered the works of Milton and Buchanan to be pub- knew the thorny terms of philosophy served well to fence in the true doctrines of religion, and looked upon school-divinity as upon a rough but well-wrought armour, which might at once adorn and defend the Christian hero and equip him for the combat. 'Mr. Smith had a long and perfect intimacy with all the Greek 10 and Latin Classicks, with whom he had carefully compared whatever was worth perusing in the French, Spanish, and Italian (to which languages he was no stranger), and in all the celebrated writers of his own country. But then, according to the curious observation of the late earl of Shaftesbury, he kept the poet in awe by regular criticism', and, as it were, married the two arts for their mutual support and improvement. There was not a tract of credit upon that subject which he had not diligently examined, from Aristotle down to Hedelin' and Bossu 3; so that, having each rule constantly before him, he could carry the art through every poem, and at once point out the graces and deformities. By this means he seemed to read with a design to correct, as well as imitate. 'Being thus prepared he could not but taste every little 11 delicacy that was set before him, though it was impossible for him at the same time to be fed and nourished with any thing but what was substantial and lasting. He considered the ancients and moderns not as parties or rivals for fame, but as architects upon one and the same plan, the Art of Poetry, according to which he judged, approved, and blamed, without flattery or detraction. If he did not always commend the compositions of others it was not ill-nature (which was not in his temper) but strict justice that would not let him call a few flowers set in ranks a glib measure and so many couplets by the name of poetry: he was of Ben Jonson's opinion, who could not admire The writer refers, I believe, to Shaftesbury's Advice to an Author, in Characteristics. In vol. i. p. 186, ed. 1714, he writes :-'As cruel a court as the Inquisition appears, there must, it seems, be full as formidable a one erected in ourselves. ... We hope that by our method of practice, and the help of the grand Arcanum which we have professed to reveal, this regimen, or discipline of the fancies, may not in the end prove so severe or mortifying as is imagined.' 2 François Hedelin, Abbé d'Aubignac (1604-76). 'Sa Pratique du théâtre est peu lue; il prouva par sa tragédie de Zénobie que les connaissances ne donnent pas les talens.' VOLTAIRE, Œuvres, xvii. 43. 'Il s'applaudissait d'avoir fait une pièce selon toutes les règles d'Aristote. Ce qui fit dire à M. le Prince, le Grand Condé :-"Je sais bon gré à M. l'Abbé d'Aubignac d'avoir si bien suivi les règles d'Aristote; mais je ne pardonne pas aux règles d'Aristote d'avoir fait faire une si méchante tragédie à M. l'Abbé d'Aubignac." Euvres de Boileau, v. 155. 3 René Lebossu (1631-80). 'Son Traité sur le Poëme épique a beaucoup de réputation, mais il ne fera jamais de poètes.' VOLTAIRE, Euvres, xvii. 117. See ante, MILTON, 209. 12 13 14 -Verses as smooth and soft as cream, In which there was neither depth nor stream"." 'And therefore, though his want of complaisance for some men's overbearing vanity made him enemies, yet the better part of mankind were obliged by the freedom of his reflections. 'His Bodleian Speech, though taken from a remote and imperfect copy, hath shewn the world how great a master he was of the Ciceronian eloquence, mixed with the conciseness and force of Demosthenes, the elegant and moving turns of Pliny, and the acute and wise reflections of Tacitus. 'Since Temple3 and Roscommon, no man understood Horace better, especially as to his happy diction, rolling numbers, beautiful imagery, and alternate mixture of the soft and the sublime. This endeared Dr. Hannes's odes to him, the finest genius for Latin lyrick since the Augustan Age. His friend Mr. Philips's ode to Mr. St. John (late Lord Bolingbroke), after the manner of Horace's Lusory or Amatorian Odes, is certainly a masterpiece; bi Mr. Smith's Pocockius' is of the sublimer kind, though, like Waller's writings upon Oliver Cromwell, it wants not the most delicate and surprising turns peculiar to the person praised. I do not remember to have seen any thing like it in Dr. Bathurst, who had made some attempts this way with applause. He was an excellent judge of humanity; and so good an historian that in familiar discourse he would talk over the most memorable facts in antiquity, the lives, actions, and characters of celebrated men, with amazing facility and accuracy. As he had thoroughly read and digested Thuanus's works so he was able to copy after him; and his talent in this kind was so well known and allowed that he had been singled ''Others there are that have no composition at all, but a kind of tuning and rhyming fall in what they write. It runs and slides, and only makes a sound. Women's-poets they are called, as you have women'staylors. They write a verse as smooth, as soft as cream, In which there is no torrent nor scarce stream.' Jonson's Works, ed. 1756, vii. 93. 2 Oratio... in laudem... T. Bodleii. 'Dr. John Morris, who died in 1648, bequeathed £5 annually to be paid to some M.A. of Christ Church, chosen by the Dean, for a speech in honour of Sir Thomas Bodley.' Smith delivered the speech in 1701. The MS. is in the Library, 'very beautifully written in imitation of typo |