Writers commonly derive their reputation from their works; but there are works which owe their reputation to the character of the writer. The publick fometimes has its favourites, whom it rewards for one fpecies of excellence with the honours due to another. From him whom we reverence for his beneficence we do not willingly withhold the praise of genius; a man of exalted merit becomes at once an accomplished writer, as a beauty finds no great difficulty in paffing for a wit.

Granville was a man illustrious by his birth, and therefore attracted notice; fince he is by Pope ftyled "the polite," he must be supposed elegant in his manners, and generally loved; he was in times of conteft and turbulence fteady to his party, and obtained that esteem which is always conferred upon firmness and confiftency. With those advantages, having learned the art of verfifying, he declared himself a poet; and his claim to the laurel was allowed.

But by a critick of a later generation, who takes up his book without any favourable prejudices, the praise already received will be thought fufficient; for his works do not fhew him to have had much comprehenfion from nature, or illumination from learning. He feems to have had no ambition above the imitation of Waller, of whom he has copied the faults, and very little more. He is for ever amufing himself with the puerilities of mythology; his King is Jupiter, who, if the Queen brings no children, bas a barren Juno. The Queen is compounded of Juno, Venus, and Minerva. His poem on the dutchefs of Grafton's law-fuit, after having rattled a

while with Juno and Pallas, Mars and Alcides, Caffiope, Niobe, and the Propetides, Hercules, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, at laft concludes its folly with profaneness.

His verfes to Mira, which are most frequently mentioned, have little in them of either art or nature, of the fentiments of a lover, or the language of a poet there may be found, now and then, a happier effort; but they are commonly feeble and unaffecting, or forced and extravagant.

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His little pieces are feldom either fprightly or elegant, either keen or weighty. They are trifles written by idleness, and published by vanity. But his Prologues and Epilogues have a juft claim to praife.

The Progress of Beauty feems one of his moft elaborate pieces, and is not deficient in splendour and gaiety; but the merit of original thought is wanting. Its highest praise is the spirit with which he celebrates king James's confort, when she was a queen no longer.

The Effay or unnatural Flights in Poetry is not inelegant nor injudicious, and has fomething of vigour beyond most of his other performances: his precepts are juft, and his cautions proper; they are indeed not new, but in a didactic poem novelty is to be expected only in the ornaments and illuftrations. His poetical precepts are accompanied with agreeable and inftructive notes.

The Mafque of Peleus and Thetis has here and there a pretty line but it is not always melodious, and the conclufion is wretched.

In his British Enchanters he has bidden defiance to all chronology, by confounding the inconfiftent manners of different ages: but the dialogue has often the

air of Dryden's rhyming plays; and his fongs are lively, though not very correct. This is, I think, far the beft of his works; for, if it has many faults, it has likewife paffages which are at least pretty, though they do not rife to any high degree of excellence.

YALDEN.

YAL DE N.

THOMAS YALDEN, the fixth son of Mr. John Yalden, of Suffex, was born in the city of Exeter in 1671. Having been educated in the grammar-fchool belonging to Magdalen College in Oxford, he was in 1690, at the age of nineteen, admitted commoner of Magdalen Hall, under the tuition of Jofiah Pullen, a man whose name is still remembered in the univerfity. He became next year one of the scholars of Magdalen College, where he was distinguished by a lucky accident.

It was his turn, one day, to pronounce a declamation; and Dr. Hough, the prefident, happening to attend, thought the compofition too good to be the speaker's. Some time after, the doctor finding him a little irregularly bufy in the library, fet him an exercise for punishment; and, that he might not be deceived by any artifice, locked the door. Yalden, as it happened, had been lately reading on the fubject given, and produced with little difficulty a compofition which fo pleafed the prefident, that he

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told,

told him his former fufpicions, and promised to favour him.

Among his contemporaries in the college were Addifon and Sacheverell, men who were in those times friends, and who both adopted Yalden to their intimacy. Yalden continued, throughout his life, to think as probably he thought at first, yet did not forfeit the friendship of Addifon.

When Namur was taken by king William, Yalden made an ode. There never was any reign more celebrated by the poets than that of William, who had very little regard for fong himself, but happened to employ minifters who pleased themselves with the praise of patronage.

Of this ode mention is made in a humourous poem of that time, called The Oxford Laureat; in which, after many claims had been made and rejected, Yalden is represented as demanding the laurel, and as being called to his trial, instead of receiving a reward.

His crime was for being a felon in verse,

And presenting his theft to the king;
The firft was a trick not uncommon or scarce,
But the laft was an impudent thing:

Yet what he has ftol'n was fo little worth ftealing,

They forgave him the damage and cost;

Had he ta'en the whole ode, as he took it piecemealing,

They had fin'd him but ten-pence at most.

The poet whom he was charged with robbing was Congreve.

He wrote another poem on the death of the duke of Gloucefter.