If fuch a man attempted poetry, we can not wonder that his works were praised. Dryden, whom, if Prior tells truth, he dif tinguished by his beneficence, and who lavished his blandishments on those who are not known to have fo well deserved them, undertaking to produce authors of our own country superior to thofe of antiquity, fays, I would inftance your Lordship in fatire, and Shakspeare in tragedy. Would it be imagined that, of this rival to antiquity, all the fatires were little perfonal invectives, and that his longeft compofition was a fong of eleven ftanzas?v The blame, however, of this exaggerated praife falls on the encomiaft, not upon the author; whose performances are, what they pretend to be, the effufions of a man of wit; gay, vigorous, and airy. His verfes to Howard fhew great fertility of mind, and his Dorinda has been imitated by Pope. STEPNEY. STEPNEY. GE in EORGE STEPNEY, defcended from the Stepneys of Pendegraft Pembrokeshire, was born at Westminster in 1663. Of his father's condition or fortune I have no account. Having received the first part of his education at Westminster, where he paffed fix years in the College, he went at nineteen to Cambridge, where he continued a friendship begun at fchool with Mr. Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax. They came to London together, and are faid to have been invited into publick life by the Duke of Dorfet. His qualifications recommended him to many foreign employments, fo that his time seems to have been spent in negotiations. In 1692 he was fent envoy to the Elector of Branden Ee 3 Brandenburgh; in 1693 to the Imperial Court; in 1694 to the Elector of Saxony; in 1696 to the Electors of Mentz and Cologne, and the Congress at Francfort; in 1698 a fecond time to Brandenburgh; in 1699 to the King of Poland; in 1701 again to the Emperor; and in 1706 to the States General. In 1697 he was made one of the commiffioners of trade, His life was bufy, and not long. He died in 1797; and is buried in Westminster-Abbey, with this epitaph, which Jacob tranfcribed, H. S. E. GEORGIUS STEPNEIUS, Armiger, Ob Ingenii acumen, Morum Suavitatem, Rerum Ufum, Virorum Ampliffimorum Confuetudinem, Linguæ, Styli, ac Vitæ Elegantiam, Præclara Officia cum Britanniæ tum Europæ præftita, Sua ætate multum celebratus, Apud pofteros femper celebrandus ; Ea Fide, Diligentia, ac Felicitate, Gulielmi & Annæ Spem Spem in illo repofitam Haud raro fuperaverit. Poft longum honorum Curfum Brevi Temporis Spatio confectum, On the Left Hand: G. S. Ex Equeftri Familia Stepneiorum, Weftmonafterii natus eft, A. D. 1663. Sancti Petri Weftmonaft. A. 1676. Frequentia, huc elatus, 1707. It is reported that the juvenile compofitions of Stepney made grey authors blush. I know not whether his poems will appear fuch wonders to the prefent age. One cannot always eafily find the reason for which the world has fometimes confpired to fquander praise. It is not very unlikely that he wrote very early as well as he ever wrote; and the performances of youth have many favourers, because the authors yet lay no claim to publick honours, and are therefore not confidered as rivals by the distributors of fame. He apparently profeffed himself a poet, and added his name to those of the other wits in the verfion of Juvenal; but he is a very licentious tranflator, and does not recompenfe his neglect of the author by beauties of his own. In his original poems, now and then, a happy line may perhaps be found, and now and then a fhort composition may give pleafure. But there is in the whole little either of the grace of wit, or the vigour of nature. J. PHI |