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 written 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 greateft men that any age ever produced, in a style equal to them, he might have ferved as a panegyrift on him. This is all I think neceffary to say of his family. I fhall proceed to himfelf 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 rest. The style agreed fo well with the burlesque, 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 burlefque is much to be preferred to the low. It is much eafier 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 itfelf 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 blushing. The lofty burlesque is the more to be admired, because, to write it, the author must be mafter of two of the most different talents in nature. A talent to find out and expose what is ridiculous, is very different from that which is to raife 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 ftyle, and the tragedian as often in comedy. Admiration and Laughter are of fuch oppotite natures, that they are feldom created by the fame perfon. The man of mirth is always obferving the follies and weakneffes, the ferious ferious writer the virtues or crimes, of mankind; one is pleased with contemplating a beau, the other a hero: even from the fame object they would draw different ideas: Achilles would appear in very different lights to Therfites and Alexander; the one would admire the courage and greatnefs of his foul; the other would ridicule the vanity and rafhness of his temper. As the fatyrift fays to Hanibal: -I, curre per Alpes, Ut pueris placeas, & declamatio fias. The contrariety of style to the subject pleases the more ftrongly, because it is more furpriting; the expectation of the reader is pleafantly deceived, who expects an humble ftyle from the 'fubject, or a great fubject from the ftyle. It pleafes the more univerfally, because it is agrecable to the tafte both of the grave and the merry; but more particularly fo to those who have a relish of the beft writers, and the nobleft fort of poetry. I fhall produce only one paffage out of this poet, which is the misfortune of his Galligafkins: My Galligafkins, which have long withstood By time fubdued (what will not time fubdue!) This is admirably pathetical, and fhews very well the viciffitudes of fublunary things. The reft gocs on to a prodigious height; and a man in Greenland could hardly have made a more pathetick and terrible complaint. Is it not furprising that the fubject fhould be fo mean, and the verfe fo pompous, that the leaft things in his poetry, as in a microfcope, fhould grow great and formidable to the eye; efpecially confidering that, not understanding French, he had no model for his ftyle that he fhould have no writer to imitate, and himself be inimitable? that he fhould do all this before he was twenty? at an age which is ufually pleafed with a glare of falfe thoughts, little turns, and unnatural fuftian? at an age, at which Cowley, Dryden, and I had almoft faid Virgil, were inconfiderable? So foon was his imagination at its full ftrength, his judgement ripe, and his humour complete. This poem was written for his own diverfion, without any defign of publication. It was communicated but to me; but foon fpread, and fell into the hands of pirates. It was put out, vilcly mangled, by Ben Bragge; and impudently faid to be corrected by the author. This grievance is now grown more epidemical; and no man now has a right to his own thoughts, or a title to his own writings. Xenophon answered the Perfian, who demanded his arms, "We have 66 nothing now left but our arms and our valour: if "we furrender the one, how fhall we make use of "the other?" Poets have nothing but their wits and their writings; and if they are plundered of the latter, I don't fee what good the former can do them. To pirate, and publicly own it, to prefix their names to the works they fteal, to own and avow the theft, I believe, was never yet heard of but in England. It will found oddly to pofterity, that, in a polite nation, in an enlightened age, under the direction of the moft wife, moft learned, and moft generous encouragers of knowledge in the world, the property of a mechanick fhould be better fecured than that of a fcholar! that the pooreft manual operations should be be more valued than the nobleft products of the brain! that it should be felony to rob a cobler of a pair of fhoes, and no crime to deprive the beft author of his whole fubfiftence! that nothing fhould make a man a fure title to his own writings but the ftupidity of them! that the works of Dryden fhould meet with lefs encouragement than thofe of his own Fleck noe, or Blackmore! that Tillotfon and St. George, Tom Thumb and Temple, fhould be fet on an equal foot! This is the reafon why this very Paper has been fo long delayed; and, while the moft impudent and fcandalous libels are publickly vended by the pirates, this innocent work is forced to fteal abroad as if it were a libel. Our prefent writers are by thefe wretches reduced to the fame condition Virgil was, when the centurion feized on his eftate. But I don't doubt but I can fix upon the Mæcenas of the prefent age. that will retrieve them from it. But, whatever effect this piracy may have upon us, it contributed very much to the advantage of Mr. Philips: it helped him to a reputation which he neither defired nor expected, and to the honour of being put upon a work of which he did not think himfelf capable; but the event fhewed his modefty. And it was reafonable to hope, that he, who could raife mean fubjects fo high, fhould ftill be more elevated on greater themes; that he, that could draw fuch noble ideas from a fhilling, could not fail upon fuch a fubject as the Duke of Marlborough, which is capable of heightening even the moft low and trifling genius. And, indeed, most of the great works which have been produced in the world have been owing lefs to the poet than the |