To Trivia may be allowed all that it claims; it is fprightly, various, and pleasant. The fubject is of that kind which Gay was by nature qualified to adorn; yet fome of his decorations may be juftly wifhed away. An honeft blacksmith might have done for Patty what is performed by Vulcan. The appearance of Cloacina is naufeous and fuperfluous; a fhoe-boy could have been produced by the casual cohabitation of mere mortals. Horace's rule is broken in both cafes; there is no dignus vindice nodus, no difficulty that required any fupernatural interpofition. A patten may be made by the hammer of a mortal; and a baftard may be dropped by a human ftrumpet. On great occafions, and on fmall, the mind is repelled by useless and apparent falfehood.

Of his little Poems the publick judgement feems to be right; they are neither much efteemed, nor totally despised. The story of the Apparition is borrowed from one of the tales of Poggio. Those that please leaft are the pieces to which Gulliver gave occafion; for who can much delight in the echo of an unnatural fiction?

Dione is a counterpart to Amynta, and Paftor Fido, and other trifles of the fame kind, eafily imitated, and unworthy of imitation. What the Italians call comedies from a happy conclufion, Gay calls a tragedy from a mournful event; but the style of the Italians and of Gay is equally tragical. There is fomething in the poetical Arcadia fo remote from known reality and fpeculative poffibility, that we can never fupport its reprefentation through a long work. A Paftoral of an hundred lines may be endured; but

who will hear of sheep and goats, and myrtle bowers and purling rivulets, through five acts? Such fcenes please Barbarians in the dawn of literature, and children in the dawn of life; but will be for the most part thrown away, as men grow wife, and nations grow learned.

GRAN

GRANVILLE.

OF GEORGE GRANVILLE, or, as others write, Greenville, or Grenville, afterwards lord Landfdown of Bideford in the county of Devon, lefs is known than his name and high rank might give reason to expect. He was born about 1667, the fon of Bernard Greenville, who was entrusted by Monk with the most private tranfactions of the Reftoration, and the grandson of Sir Bevil Greenville, who died in the King's cause, at the battle of Landfdowne.

His early education was fuperintended by Sir William Ellis; and his progrefs was fuch, that before the age of twelve he was fent to Cambridge *, where he pronounced a copy of his own verfes to the princess Mary d'Efté of Modena, then dutchess of York, when fhe vifited the university.

* To Trinity College. By the univerfity register it appears that he was admitted to his Master's degree in 1679: we müft, therefore, fet the year of his birth some years back. H.

At

At the acceffion of king James, being now at eighteen, he again exerted his poetical powers, and addressed the new monarch in three fhort pieces, of which the firft is profane, and the two others such as a boy might be expected to produce; but he was commended by old Waller, who perhaps was pleased to find himself imitated in fix lines, which, though they begin with nonfenfe and end with dulnefs, excited in the young author a rapture of acknow ledgement,

In numbers fuch as Waller's felf might ufe;

It was probably about this time that he wrote the poem to the earl of Peterborough, upon his accomplishment of the duke of York's marriage with the princess of Modena, whofe charms appear to have gained a strong prevalence over his imagination, and upon whom nothing ever has been charged but imprudent piety, an intemperate and misguided zeal for the propagation of Popery.

However faithful Granville might have been to the King, or however enamoured of the Queen, he has left no reason for fuppofing that he approved either the artifices or the violence with which the King's religion was infinuated or obtruded. He endea voured to be true at once to the King and to the Church.

Of this regulated loyalty he has tranfmitted to pofterity a fufficient proof, in the letter which he wrote to his father about a month before the prince of Orange landed.

. Mar,

Mar, near Doncafter, Oct. 6, 1688. "To the honourable Mr. Barnard Granville, at the "earl of Bathe's, St. James's.

"SIR,

"Your having no profpect of obtaining a commiffion for me, can no way alter or cool my defire at this important juncture to venture my life, in "fome manner or other, for my King and my. "Country.

"I cannot bear living under the reproach of lying "obfcure and idle in a country retirement, when every man who has the leaft fenfe of honour should "be preparing for the field.

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σε

"You may remember, Sir, with what reluctance "I fubmitted to your commands upon Monmouth's "rebellion, when no importunity could prevail with you to permit me to leave the Academy: I was too young to be hazarded; but, give me leave to "fay, it is glorious at any age to die for one's counand the fooner, the nobler the facrifice. "I am now older by three years. My uncle Bathe "was not fo old when he was left among the flain at "the battle of Newbury; nor you yourfelf, Sir, "when you made your efcape from your tutor's, ta "join your brother at the defence of Scilly.

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try;

"The fame caufe has now come round about again. "The King has been misled; let those who have "mifled him be anfwerable for it. Nobody can deny "but he is facred in his own perfon; and it is every "honeft man's duty to defend it.

"You are pleased to say, it is yet doubtful if the "Hollanders are rafh enough to make fuch an at

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tempt; but, be that as it will, I beg leave to in