gies there appears to be a more masterly arrangement, and a greater variety of poetic imagery and allusion than in their fellows: though the fourth, written in his eighteenth year to his former preceptor Young; and the seventh, in which the poet, at the age of nineteen, describes, with tenderness and sensibility, the transient effects of love upon his bosom, must be admitted to very high and distinguished praise. The object, as it may be proper to mention, of the love, which he has thus commemorated, was a lady, whom he accidentally saw in one of the publick walks near the metropolis, and of whom, on her sudden disappearance among the crowd, he could never obtain any further intelligence.

A critical eye may sometimes detect in these compositions an expression, which an Augustan writer would not, perhaps, acknowledge as authentic; and a reader of taste may sometimes wish for more compression in the style; and may be sorry that the youthful poet did not occasionally follow some model of more nerve than the diffuse and languid Ovid. On the whole, however, these productions must be regarded as possessing rare and pre-eminent merit. To England, indeed, they are peculiarly interesting, as they were

the first pieces which extended her fame for latin poetry to the continent; and as they evince the various power of her illustrious bard, by showing, that he, who afterwards approved himself to be her Eschylus and her Homer, could once flow in the soft numbers, and breathe the tender sentiments of Ovid and 'Tibullus.

The only prose compositions of this date, which we possess of our 'author's, are some of his college and University exercises, under the title of " Prolusiones oratoriæ," and five of his familiar letters; four of them in latin to his old preceptors, Young and Gill; and one in English, forming his answer to a friend, who had censured him for wasting his life in literary pursuits, and had urged him to forsake his study for some of the active occupations of the world. This letter, of which Dr. Birch has published the rough and the corrected draught from the author's MSS. in the library of Trinity college, Cambridge, concludes with a very impressive sonnet; and is particularly interesting for the view, which it gives to us of the writer's delicacy of principle, and of the high motives which actuated his bosom. The reader, as I persuade myself, will thank me for communicating it.

66 'SIR,

“Besides that in sundry other respects I must acknowledge me to profit by you, whenever wee meet, you are often to me, and were yesterday especially, as a good watchman to admonish, that the howres of the night passe on, (for so I call my life as yet obscure and unserviceable to mankind) and that the day with me is at hand, wherein Christ commands all to labour, while there is light. Which because I am persuaded you doe to no other purpose then out of a true desire, that God should be honoured in every one, I therefore thinke myselfe bound, though unaskt, to give you account, as oft as occasion is, of this my tardie moving, ac cording to the præcept of my conscience, which, I firmely trust, is not without God. Yet now I will not streine for any set apologie, but only referre myself to what my mind shall have at any tyme to declare her selfe at her best ease. But if you thinke, as you said, that too much love of learning is in fault, and that I have given up myselfe to dreame away my yeares in the armes of studious retirement, like Endymion with the moone, as the tale of Latmus goes; yet con→ sider, that if it were no more but the meere love of learning, whether it proceed from a

principle bad, good, or naturall, it could not have held out thus long against 'so strong opposition on the other side of every kind. For if it be bad, why should not all the fond hopes, that forward youth and vanitie are fledge with, together with gaine, pride, and ambition, call me forward more powerfully, then a poor regardlesse and unprofitable sin of curiosity should be able to withhold me, whereby a man cutts himselfe off from all action, and becomes the most. helpless, pusillanimous, and unweaponed creature in the world, the most unfit and unable to doe that, which all mortals most aspire to, either to be usefull to his friends, or to offend his enemies. Or if it be to be thought a naturall pronenesse, there is against that a much more potent inclination inbred, which about this tyme of a man's life sollicits most, the desire of house and family of his owne, to which nothing is esteemed more helpful then the early entring into credible employment, and nothing hindering then this affected solitarinesse. And though this were anough, yet there is to this another act, if not of pure, yet of refined nature, no lesse availeable to dissuade prolonged obscurity, a desire of honour and repute and immortall fame seated in the brest of every true scholar, which all

make hast to by the readiest ways of publishing and divulging conceived merits, as well those that shall, as those that never shall obtain it. Nature therefore would præsently work the more prævalent way, if there were nothing but this inferior bent of herself to restraine her. Lastly, the love of learning, as it is the pursuit of something good, it wou'd sooner follow the more excellent and supream good known and præsented, and so be quickly diverted from the emptie and fantastic chase of shadows and notions, to the solid good flowing from due and tymely obedience to that command in the gospell sett out by the terrible seasing of him, that hid the talent. It is more probable therefore, that not the endlesse delight of speculation, but this very consideration of that great commandment, does not presse forward, as soon as many do, to undergoe, but keeps off with a sacred reverence and religious advisement how best to undergoe; not taking thought of beeing late, so it give advantage to be more fit; for those, that were latest, lost nothing, when the maister of the vineyard came to give each one his hire. And here I am come to a streame-head, copious enough to disburden itself like Nilus at seven mouthes into an ocean. But then I should

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