travelled to Italy; and coming back in 1740, published the Ruins of Rome.

If his poem was written foon after his return, he did not make much use of his acquifitions, whatever they might be; for decline of health, and love of study, determined him to the church. He therefore entered into orders; and, it feems, married about the fame time a lady of the name of Enfor; "whofe

grand-mother," fays he, "was a Shake"fpeare, defcended from a brother of every body's Shakespeare;" by her, in 1756, he had a fon and three daughters living.

His ecclefiaftical provifion was a long time but flender. His firft patron, Mr. Harper, gave him, in 1741, Calthorp in Leicestershire of eighty pounds a year, A 2

on

What fuch an author has told, who would tell again? I have made an abftract from his larger narrative; and shall have this gratification from my attempt, that it gives me an opportunity of paying due tribute to the memory of a departed genius.

Τὸ γὰρ γέρας ἐςὶ θανόντων.

THOMAS PARNELL was the fon of a commonwealthsman of the fame name, who at the Restoration left Congleton in Cheshire, where the family had been established for feveral centuries, and, fettling in Ireland, purchafed an eftate, which, with his lands in Cheshire, defcended to the poet, who was born at Dublin in 1679; and,

after

eafily admit. In the converfation the author's age was asked; and being represented as advanced in life, He will, faid the critick, be buried in woollen.

He did not indeed long furvive that publication, nor long enjoy the increase of his preferments; for in 1758 he

died.

Dyer is not a poet of bulk or dignity fufficient to require an elaborate criticifm. Grongar Hill is the happiest of his productions: it is not indeed very accurately written; but the scenes which it difplays are so pleasing, the images which they raise so welcome to the mind, and the reflections of the writer fo confonant to the general fenfe or experience

of

of mankind, that when it is once read,

it will be read again.

t

The idea of the Ruins of Rome strikes more but pleases lefs, and the title raifes greater expectation than the performance gratifies. Some paffages, however, are conceived with the mind of a poet; as, when, in the neighbourhood of dilapi-, dating Edifices, he fays,

--At dead of night

The hermit oft, 'midft his orifons, hears, Aghaft, the voice of Time difparting

towers.

Of The Fleece, which never became popular, and is now univerfally neglected, I can fay little that is likely to recall it to attention. The woolcomber and the poet appear to me fuch difcor

ferment little more than a year; for in July 1717, in his thirty-eighth year, he died at Chefter, on his way to Ireland.

He feems to have been one of those poets who take delight in writing. He contributed to the papers of that time, and probably published more than he owned. He left many compofitions behind him, of which Pope selected those which he thought beft, and dedicated them to the earl of Oxford. Of thefe Goldsmith has given an opinion, and his criticism it is feldom fafe to contradict. He bestows just praise upon the Rife of Woman, the Fairy Tale, and the Pervigilium Veneris; but has very pro

perly