other songs, in smooth and easy language, of scorn and kindness, dismission and desertion, absence and inconstancy, with the commonplaces of artificial courtship. They are commonly smooth and easy; but have little nature, and little sentiment. His Imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not inelegant or unhappy. In the reign of Charles the second began that adaptation, which has since been very frequent, of ancient poetry to present times; and, perhaps, few will be found where the parallelism is better preserved than in this. The versification is, indeed, sometimes careless, but it is sometimes vigorous and weighty. The strongest effort of his muse is his poem upon Nothing. He is not the first who has chosen this barren topick for the boast of his fertility. There is a poem called Nihil in Latin, by Passerat, a poet and critick of the sixteenth century, in France; who, in his own epitaph, expresses his zeal for good poetry thus: Molliter ossa quiescent Sint modo carminibus non onerata malis. His works are not common, and, therefore, I shall subjoin his verses. In examining this performance, Nothing must be considered as having not only a negative, but a kind of positive signification; as I need not fear thieves, I have nothing, and nothing is a very powerful protector. In the first part of the sentence it is taken negatively; in the second it is taken positively, as an agent. In one of Boileau's lines it was a question, whether he should use "à rien faire," or "à ne rien faire ;" and the first was preferred, because it gave "rien" a sense in some sort positive. Nothing can be a subject only in its positive sense, and such a sense is given it in the first line : Nothing, thou elder brother ev'n to shade. In this line, I know not whether he does not allude to a curious book, De Umbra, by Wowerus, which, having told the qualities of shade, concludes with a poem, in which are these lines: Jam primum terram validis circumspice claustris Omnibus UMBRA prior. The positive sense is generally preserved, with great skill, through the whole poem; though, sometimes, in a subordinate sense, the negative nothing is injudiciously mingled. Passerat confounds the two senses. Another of his most vigorous pieces is his lampoon on sir Car Scroop, who, in a poem called the Praise of Satire, had some lines like these": He who can push into a midnight fray This was meant of Rochester, whose "buffoon conceit" was, I suppose, a saying often mentioned, that "every man would be a coward, if he durst;" and drew from him those furious verses; to which Scroop made, in reply, an epigram, ending with these lines: Thou canst hurt no man's fame with thy ill word; Of the Satire against Man, Rochester can only claim what remains, when all Boileau's part is taken away. In all his works there is sprightliness and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind, which study might have carried to excellence. What more can be expected from a life spent in ostentatious contempt of regu larity, and ended, before the abilities of many other men began to be displayed"? Poema Cl. V. JOANNIS PASSERATII, Regii in Academia Parisiensi Professoris. Janus adest, festæ poscunt sua dona kalendæ, Usque adeo ingenii nostri est exhausta facultas, Ausoniæ indictum NIHIL est, græcæque, Camœnæ. In bello sanctum NIHIL est, Martisque tumultu: The late George Steevens, esq. made the selection of Rochester's poems which appears in Dr. Johnson's edition; but Mr. Malone observes, that the same task had been performed, in the early part of the last century, by Jacob Tonson. C. Scire NIHIL, studio cui nunc incumbitur uni. Vexerit et quemvis trans moestas portitor undas, Diique NIHIL metuunt. Quid longo carmine plura Sed tempus finem argutis imponere nugis: Ne tibi si multa laudem mea carmina charta, De NIHILO NIHILI pariant fastidia versus. ROSCOMMON. WENTWORTH DILLON, earl of Roscommon, was the sou of James Dillon and Elizabeth Wentworth, sister to the earl of Strafford. He was born in Ireland', during the lieutenancy of Strafford, who, being both his uncle and his godfather, gave him his own surname. His father, the third earl of Roscommon, had been converted by Usher to the protestant religion"; and when the popish rebellion broke out, Strafford, thinking the family in great danger from the fury of the Irish, sent for his godson, and placed him at his own seat in Yorkshire, where he was instructed in Latin; which he learned so as to write it with purity and elegance, though he was never able to retain the rules of grammar. Such is the account given by Mr. Fenton, from whose notes on Waller most of this account must be borrowed, though I know not whether all that he relates is certain. The instructer whom he assigns to Roscommon is one Dr. Hall, by whom he cannot mean the famous Hall, then an old man and a bishop. When the storm broke out upon Strafford, his house was a shelter no longer; and Dillon, by the advice of Usher, was sent to Caen, where the protestants had then an university, and continued his studies under Bochart. Young Dillon, who was sent to study under Bochart, and who is represented as having already made great proficiency in literature, could not be more than nine years old. Strafford went to govern Ireland in 1633, and was put to death eight years afterwards. That he was sent to Caen, is certain that he was a great scholar, may be doubted. : The Biographia Britannica says, probably about the year 1632; but this is inconsistent with the date of Strafford's viceroyalty in the following page. C. " It was his grandfather, sir Robert Dillon, second earl of Roscommon, who was converted from popery; and his conversion is recited in the patent of sir James, the first earl of Roscommon, as one of the grounds of his creation. M. |