motions had been more regular, and lefs fudden. But he now appears like an eagle that is fometimes chained; and at that particular time, for want of nobler and more proper food, diverts his confinement, and appeafes his hunger, by deftroying the gnats, butterflies, and other wretched infects that unluckily happen to buz or flutter within his reach. While I have been reading over his poems, I have confidered him as an Egyptian hieroglyphic; which tho' it had an unnatural, and frequently an indecent appearance, yet it always contained fome fecret marks of wisdom, and fometimes of deep morality. The fubjects of his poems are often naufeous, and the perform ances beautifully difagreeable. The lady's dreing-room has been univerfally condemned, as der ficient in point of delicacy, even to the higheft degree. The best apology that can be made in its favour, is to fuppofe, that the au thor exhibited his Celia in the most hideous colours he could find, left he might be mistaken as a goddefs, when she was only a mortal. External beauty very alluring to youth and inexperience; and Swift, by pulling off the borrowed plumes of his harpy, difcovers at once a frightful bird of prey, and by making her offenfive, renders her lefs dangerous and inviting. Such, I hope, was his defign. But let his views and motives have been ever fo beneficial, his general want of delicacy and decorum must not hope even to find the shadow of an excufe; for it is impoffible not to own, that he too frequently forgets that politenefs and tenderness of manners, which are undoubtedly due to human kind. From his early and repeated disappointments, he became a milanthrope. If his mind had been more equal and content, I am willing to believe, that he would have viewed the works of nature with a more benign afpect. And perhaps, under a lefs conftant rotation of anxiety, he might have preferved his fenfes to the last scene of life, and might have enjoyed that calm exit from the stage, for which his friend Horace fo earnestly, fupplicates Apollo. Frui paratis et valido mihi, Latoe, dones, et, precor, integra His pride was fo great as fcarce to admit any body to the leaft hare of his friendship, except fuch who could amufe him, or fuch who could do him honour. To these two different claffes we owe many of his poems. His companions and humble followers find themselves immortalized by the infertion of their names in addreffes to Stella, or in other mifcellaneous pieces, written in an eafy, altho' not in a careless manner. His more exalted friends, whose stations and characters did him honour, are treated in a different ftyle and you will perceive a real dignity, and a most delicate kind of wit, in all his poems to Lord Oxford, Lord Peterborow, Lord Carteret (now Earl of Granville), Mr Pulteney (now Earl of Bath); and I think I may particularly add, in a : A.2 poems poem to the Countess of Winchelsea (under the name of Ardelia), and another to Mrs Biddy Floyd. Thefe names abetted him in his pursuit of fame. They reflected back the glory which he gave. But ftill I cannot recollect one poem, nay fcarce a couplet, to his noble patron Lord Bolingbroke. In that inftance he has been as filent, as Virgil has been to Horace; and yet he certainly had not a grain of envy in his compofition. I think I can difcern a third kind of style in his poems addressed to Mr Pope, Mr Gay, Dr Delany, and Dr Young. When he writes to them, there is a mixture of eafe, dignity, familiarity, and affection. They were his intimate friends, whom he loved fincerely, and whom he wished to accompany into the poetical regions of eternity. As to the poem called Death and Daphne; I recollect an odd in cident relating to that nymph. Swift, foon after our acquaintance, introduced me to her, as to one of his female favourites. I had fcarce been half an hour in her company, before she asked me, if I had feen the Dean's poem upon Death and Daphne? As I told her I had not, the immediately unlocked a cabinet, and bringing out the manuscript, read it to me with a seeming satisfaction, of which at that time I doubted the fincerity. While she was reading, the Dean was perpetually correcting her for bad pronunciation, and for placing a wrong emphafis upon particular words. As foon as she had gone thro' the compofition, the affured me fmilingly, that the por trait of Daphne was drawn for herfelf. I begged to be excused from believing it, and protefted that I could not fee one feature that had the leaft refemblance. But the Dean immediately burft into a fit of laughter; " You fancy," fays he," that you are very polite; but you are much mistaken. That lady had rather "be a Daphne drawn by me, than a Sacharissa by any other pen"cil." She confirmed what he had said with great earnestness ; fo that I had no other method of retrieving my error, than by whif pering in her car, as I was conducting her down stairs to dinner, that indeed I found 44 Her hand as dry and cold as lead. You fee the command which Swift had over all his females; and you would have fmiled to have found his house a constant seraglio of very virtuous women, who attended him from morning till night, with an obedience, an awe, and an affiduity, that are feldom paid to the richest, or the most powerful lovers; no, not even to the Grand Signior himself. To thefe ladies Swift owed the publication of many pieces, which ought never to have been delivered to the prefs. He communicated every compofition as foon as finished, to his female fenate; who not only paffed their judgment on the performance but conftantly asked, and almost as conftantly obtained, a copy of it. You cannot be furprifed, that it was immediately afterwards feen in print; and when printed, became a part of his works. He lived much at home, and was continually writing, when alone. Not Not any of his fenators prefumed to approach him, when he fig nified his pleasure to remain in private, and without interruption. His nightgown and flippers were not eafier put on or off, than his attendants. No prince ever met with more flattery to his own perfon, or more devotion to his own mandates. This defpotic powernot only blinded him, but gave a loose to paffions that ought to have been kept under a proper reftraint. I am forry to say, that whole nations are fometimes facrificed to his refentments for re flections of that fort appear to me the least justifiable of any kind. of fatire. You will read his acerrima with indignation, and his mi wutie with regret. Yet I must add, that fince he has defcended fo low as to write, and still so much lower as to print riddles, he is excellent even in that kind of verfification. The lines are fimoother, the expreffions are neater, and the thought is clofer purfued, than in any other riddle-writer whatever. But Swift compofing riddles, is Titian painting draught-boards; which must have been inexcufable, while there remained a fignpoft-painter in the worlds As to the two Latin poems, An epiftle to Dr Sheridan, and, A§ defeription of the rocks at Carbery in Ireland; the Dean was extremely folicitous, that they should be printed among his works: and.. what is no lefs true than amazing, he affumed to himself more vanity upon these two Latin poems, than upon many of his best English performances. It is faid, that Milton in his own judge ment preferred the Paradife Regained to the Paradife Loft. There poffibly might be found fome excufe for fuch a preference; but in Swift's cafe there can he none. He understood the Latin language. perfectly well, and he read it conftantly; but he was no Latin poet. And if the Carberie rupes, and the Epiftola ad Thomam Sheridan, had been the produce of any other author, they muft have undergone a severè censure from Dr Swift. The two poems, intitled, The life and genuine character of Dr Swift, and, Verfes on the death of Dr Swift, &c. are poems of great wit and humour. The first was artfully published by Dr Swift in a manner fo different from thofe rules of poetry to which he confined himself, that he hoped the public might mistake it for a spurious or uncorrect copy, ftolen by memory from his original poem. He took great pleafure in this fuppofition: and I believe it anfwered his expectation. One of his ftricteft rules in poetry was to avoid triplets. What can have given rife to fo nice a peculiarity,, is difficult to determine. It might be owing only to fingular turn of thinking. But the reafon which he publicly affigned, feemed not fo much against the practice itself, as against the poets who, indulged them felves in that manner of writing: "A cuftom (ac " cording to the Dean's opinion) introduced by laziness, continued by ignorance, and eftablished by falfe tafte." With deference to fo great a critic, it is a cuftom that has frequently been purfued with remarkable fuccefs. Mr Dryden abounds in triplets; and in fome of his moft elegant poems, the third concluding verfe forms the finest climax in the whole piece. Mr Waller, the fä-, ther of all Howing poetry, has generally referved the niceft point of wit to his triplicate line. And, upon an impartial inquiry, it is almoft to be questioned, whether, in many instances, this despicable triplet may not add a greater beauty to a poetical compoition, than any other circumftance. To be confined, on any terms, by the links of rhyme, is of great difadvantage to our Englifh poetry. The finest poem that we can boaft, and which we equalize, and perhaps would willingly prefer to the Iliad, is void of thofe fetters. But when it is our destiny to wear chains, furely we may be allowed to make them as light and eafy as we can. The fecond poem, Verfes on the death of Dr Swift, is a moft pointed piece of farcafm. Not any of the Dean's poems have more wit; nor are any of them more fevere. In it he has fummoned together his whole powers of fatire and poetry. It is a parting blow; the legacy of anger and difappointment. But as the two laft lines are grammatically incorrect, and as they were not inferted in the firft edition, published at London, I cannot tell how they have crept into a poem, that is otherwise as exactly polished as any of Swift's niceft compofitions. Orrery. The merits of Dr Swift in the character of a poet are confiderably great. His defcriptions, wherein there conftantly appear the diftinguishing marks of his own peculiar talents, are extremely juft and lively; many of his groups are not to be excelled by any painter's imagination; his rhymes and his numbers are chafte and delicate; and in places, when, rather by accident than choice, he rifes from the earth, and foars into the regions of poetry, he is equal to the finest masters among the Greeks and Romans, bis ideas are lofty, and his verfification mufically fonorous. And yet after all he is not to be confidered in the light of a profeffed poet; the multitude of his writings on various fubjects, both in verse and profe, being an evident demonftration, that he was fuperior to any particular courfe of learning. He was born to be the encourager of virtue, and the terror of the wicked. He never fat musing in bis elbow-chair upon new fubjects, for the exercise of his genius, and the advancement of his fame; but writ occafionally to please and to reform the world, as either politics or humour gave the fpur to his faculties. There are but few of his poems that feem to have been the labour of more than one day, how greatly foever they might have been corrected and polifhed afterwards to his own liking, before he transcribed them fair. There indifputably runs a vein of fatire throughout all his writings: but, as he declares that no age could have more deferved it, than that particular age wherein he was deftined to live; he is intitled to all the praise we can beftow upon him, for exerting his whole abilities in the defence of honour, virtue, and his country. ̧ In his general fatire, where perhaps thoufand's were equally meant, he hath never once thro' malice inferted the name of any one perfon; the vice nevertheless he expofeth to contempt and ridicule. But in particular fatire, when egregious monfters, traitors to the weal public, and flaves to party, are the objects of his refentment, he lafhes without mercy; well-knowing, that infamy, which is perhaps a taste of hell, is the only puniflunent which in this world world can be inflicted upon fuch rebels to fociety, as, either by craft or corruption, bid defiance to the laws. One of the mofl distinguishing characteristics of Dr Swift was a bright and clear genius; fo extremely piercing, that every the most ftriking circumftance, arifing from any fubject whatever, quickly occurred to his imagination; and thefe he frequently fo accumu lated one upon another, that perhaps, beyond all other poets, of all ages and countries, he deserves in this particular to be the most univerfally admired. And this choice of circumftances, if any ftrefs can be laid on the opinion of Longinus, that great director of our taste and judgment, renders a compofition truly noble and fublime. The most remarkable pieces of this fort, are, The furni ture of a woman's mind; Betty the Grizette; The journal of a modern lady; His poem on reading; Dr Young's fatires; Mordanto; The defcription of a city shower; The description of Quilea; The defcription of the morning; and, The place of the damned. This power of the mind gave him alfo that defperate hand, as Pope terms it, in taking off all forts of characters. To omit thofe of a political nature, fee The progress of poetry; The second part of Traulus; The progress of love; The character of Corinna; and, The beautiful young nymph just going to bed; where you will find that his imagi nation could even dream in the character of an old battered ftrumpet. And, from the fame inexhaustible fund of wit, he acquired the hiftoric arts both of defigning and colouring, either in groups, or in fingle portraits. How exact, how lively, and fpirited, is that group of figures in The journal of a modern lady? [Here the paf fage is inferted, beginning thus, But let me now a while furvey, &c. l. 116. and ending, Flew hov'ring o'er each female head, 1. 135.] And for a fingle portrait, if we confider the defign, the attitude, the drapery, or the colouring, what is it that can excel the reprefentation of Caffinus in The tragical elegy? [Here the paffage is inferted, beginning thus, He feem'd as juft crept out of bed, &c. 1. 11. and ending thus, On embers plac'd, to drink it hot, 1. 28.] Throughout all his poetical writings, altho' many of them be dedicated immediately to the fair fex, there cannot be found, to the best of my recollection, one fingle diftich, addreffed in the character of a lover to any one perfon. If he writ any poems of that fort in his younger days, they must have been deftroyed, if they be not concealed. Thofe verfes upon women which are deemed the |