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"oxen, and to say I'm goaded on by love? "After which question he never spoke

"again."

Of the Distres Mother not much is pretended to be his own, and therefore it is no fubject of criticism: his other two tragedies, I believe, are not below mediocrity, nor above it. Among the Poems comprised in this collection, the Letter from Denmark may be juftly praised; the Paftorals, which by the writer of the Guardian were ranked as one of the four genuine productions of the ruftick Muse, cannot furely be defpicable. That they exhibit a mode of life which does not exift, nor ever existed, is not to be objected; the fuppofition of fuch a ftate is allowed to Pafto

ral.

ral. In his other poems he cannot be denied the praise of lines fometimes elegant; but he has feldom much force, or much comprehenfion. The pieces that please best are those which, from Pope and Pope's adherents, procured him the name of Namby Pamby, the poems of fhort lines, by which he paid his court to all ages and characters, from Walpole the fteerer of the realm to miss Pulteney in the nursery: the numbers are smooth and spritely, and the diction is feldom faulty. They are not loaded with much thought, yet if they had been written by Addison they would have had admirers little things are not valued but when they are done by those who can do greater.

In his tranflations from Pindar he found the art of reaching all the obfcurity of the Theban bard, however

he

may fall below his fublimity; he will be allowed, if he has lefs fire, to have more smoke.

He has added nothing to English poetry, yet at least half his book deferves to be read: perhaps he valued most himself that part, which the critick would reject.

***
***

WATT S.

HE Poems of Dr. WATTS

TH

were by my recommendation in

ferted in this Collection; the readers of which are to impute to me whatever pleasure or wearinefs they may find in the perufal of Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden.

ISAAC WATTS was born July 17, 1674, at Southampton, where his father, of the fame name, kept a boarding-school for young gentlemen, though common report makes him a fhoemaker.

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