Sir John de Courcy, earl of Ulfter, and his heirs, by John king of England, for him and his fucceffors for ever. The king replied, that he remembered he had fuch a nobleman, and believed the privilege he afferted to be his right; and, giving him his hand to kifs, his lordship paid his obeyfance, ⚫ and remained uncovered.' The fame privilege has been afferted by Gerald, the prefent Lord Kingfale, who was covered in the royal prefence of the late king, anno 1720, and in that of his prefent majesty, anno 1727. Such of our readers as are defirous of a further acquaintance with Mr. Lodge's method of treating a fubject, which some may probably think but a dry one, we muft refer to the work itfelf; which appears to us to be conducted in an accurate, and, to those who have any relish for family-history, an entertaining manner, ART. XLI. Paris; or, the Force of Beauty. A poem, in two cantos, By Samuel Boyce. 4to. Is. Reeve. A N advertisement, prefixed to this poem, informs us, that 'the author's fole guide in the execution of it, has been the Pantheon-and that his bufinefs [which it seems is engraving] neceffitated the greatest part of it to have been written at times, when fancy fhould have fubmitted to the oblivion of repofe, and rendered the bestowing on it the glofs • of correction an impoffibility.' This exuberant, and fomewhat inaccurate, manner of expreffing himself, which intimates the youth of the author, does not befpeak him an unimproveable one; efpecially when we reflect on his very limited advantages in point of leisure and literature; as he fays of himself, Blind to the gleam that lights the claffic lore, I court your fmiles, the fource, the end, of all. We need not inform our readers thefe are the fmiles of the ladies, who, with their young admirers, will undoubtedly attend to the subject, and to the poet, with pleasure, and with approbation. Even thofe of a riper and more embellished tafte, who do not confider this juvenile fubject with unnatural feve rity, will acknowledge the flowing numbers and warm imagination of the young bard. The fubject of his poem is one of the best known fables in the pagan mythology. He makes his goddeffes fpeak exactly in the characters attributed to them: and tho' their speeches are much longer than those in Congreve's mafque of Paris, and come fhort of the exquifite beauty and elegance of his, yet they have a fair claim to a fubordinate and fecondary merit; and manifeft such a picturesque imagination, as may hereafter difpofe Mr. Boyce to defign, when he has acquired a command and facility in fculpture. This performance being no ways calculated for the infpection of your rigid Catos, but very naturally addreffed to the young and fair, we fhall felect, for a fpecimen of it, fome lines that delineate the force of beauty, the title and scope of the poem. After a general description of Venus, on whom of course the loves and graces are attendants, her attitude and the exordium of her fpeech are thus beautifully expressed. Th' accomplish'd queen, with confcious merit fir'd, At the close of her fpeech, after promifing to beftow Helen on her judge, the difplays her own celeftial form, as Juno and Pallas had done. She faid then all at once her ceft unbound, Her purple vestment flutter'd to the ground, &c. &c. From whence her triumph is antedated, before the decree of Paris, by his tranfport and amazement. TH MEADUS. Poema in memoriam Richardi Mead. 353 ART. XLII. Meadus. Poema in memoriam Richardi Mead, med. reg. coll. med. Lond. & Edin. & regia focietatis focioProftant apud Dan. Brown, Temple-bar. 4to. Pret. Is. HIS is no inelegant Latin poem, in memory of the late celebrated Dr. Mead; to whom, on various accounts, the literary world is not a little obliged. The language is pure and claffical, and fome centos of Virgil are agreeably interfperfed throughout the performance, which is about 150 lines. The author expreffes his concern at the irreparable difperfion of his moft elegant and valuable collection, as follows: Proh dolor heu! quantum multos congefta per annos Ingenii monumenta ruunt, difperfa per urbes, Ut membra Abfyrti matris divulfa furore. En quo perduxit cæcæ difcordia mentis Cives! tempus erit magno cum optaverit emptum After obferving the concourfe of foreigners, and particularly from Italy, to see his antiques, his pictures, medals, books, &c. the poet makes the following apt and beautiful allufion to the incident of Eneas's feeing the fiege of Troy, with his public misfortunes, in hiftorical painting at Carthage. Tros velut Æneas, Carthaginis advena regnis Monia victa dolo, et non fua Pergama flammis: Omnia fic oculis circumfpicit Italus hofpes, Socraticamque domum Meadi, fimulachraque Graium, Portantefque lares in regna Britannica Romam. Obftupet, & dulces patriæ oblivifcitur agros." It were furprising, indeed, if the mufes had been totally filent on the decease of a gentleman, whofe public benevolence and generofity, and whofe perfonal tafte and attainments, reflected honour upon his country and his profeffion. N. B. Line 136 of this poem, for vermis read vernis. ART. XLIII. The Tomb of Shakespear. A vifion *. By John Gilbert Cooper, efq; 4to. 6d. Dodfley. Avon, where Shakespear is interred. Fancy, who is employed in decking his grave with flowers, while the laments his *This piece has undergone a fecond impreffion, from which our account is extracted; and in which the author has made many corrections and confiderable alterations, from his first edition. de decease, at the request of our poetical vifionary or feer, raifes up the imaginary Beings introduced by Shakespear in his theatrical works: as Ariel, Profpero, Caliban, the fairies, witches, and ghofts; after which the fun banishing Morpheus and his dreams, our waking author concludes his poem with an address to the dear enchantress of the brain,' to give wealth, honour, and renown to others; but to grant him content, with fuch -innocence as is attainable by man, and to teach him selfknowledge. Such is the plan and conduct of this little poem, which is modulated in a four-line ftanza, of alternate rhymes, and ten fyllables, like the heroic poem of Gondibert, or the Elegy in a country church-yard. It is very obvious, the native excellence of this laft original compofition has excited Mr. Cooper's emulation, and tinged his fancy a little tho' the particular quality of the fubject has prevented any remarkable imitation of it. The movement of this kind of ftanza, which is flow and full; the length of the lines, which give fufficient room for colouring and epithets, and indeed often make the latter neceflary to the verfification; and the alternation of rhyme at no very speedy, tho' at equal fucceffions, conftitute a metre well fuited to fubjects, great, folemn, or penfive; and which, if tolerably executed, reads with an agreeable, lulling melody; as a majority of the ftanzas in this vifion do. And this, with some apt and elegant expreffion, was all that was left for our author to labour, after his model was once adjufted: for these peculiar entities, which form that imagery of the poem, that conftitutes the best and greatest part of it, being, in a great degree, of Shakespear's own creation, to be well reprefented, must be copied from his own great archetype, and will please in proportion to their just resemblance of it. The magic painting of that exalted poet then being scarcely heightened here, we shall felect a few stanzas, as a fpecimen, from the beginning of the poem, which may with more juftice be confidered as of the author's proper produce and manufacture. What time the jocund rofie-bosom'd hours Led forth the train of Phoebus and the fpring, The The nightingale no longer fwell'd her throat, The foothing ftrains of her melodious woe →→→ Hefperian garden, or Cimmerian waste. On Avons' banks I lit, whofe ftreams appear To wind with eddies fond round Shakespear's tomb,` And vi'lets breathe, and earlieft roses bloom. 7 There is an apparent impropriety in addreffing Fancy, at the conclufion, to confer wealth, honour, and renown on others; except the author intends fuch fanciful portions of them, as lunatics often affume: whence these others may thank him for nothing. The worship of Fancy fcarcely ever enriches her devotees, and raises but a very few felect ones to honour and renown; at least till after their death, when the operation of envy becomes more languid. It is equally out of her power to teach him that felf-knowledge he fupplicates her for; his cafe is coram non judice, as the lawyers fay; except he applies to Fancy only for that imaginary felf-knowledge, which is truly felf-conceit, and which she diftributes to a majority of the fons of Adam with profufion, not omitting authors and critics. -But not to animadvert with too much severity on this escape, the performance may be called, on the whole, a decent one, which term has been ufed to fignify fuch very pardonable efforts as do not rife into confiderable excellence. There is more of art and application, than of nature and genius, in it. ART. XLIV. An Effay towards a Tranflation of Homer's Works in blank verfe, with notes. By Jofeph Nicol Scot, M. D. 4to. 2s. Ofborn, &c. MBITION has often been fuppofed one indication of A genius; and the author of the prefent eflay muft be fen fible, that no little fhare of it, and no finall attainments, are required, to effect a new and unequalled translation of * all Homer's works, as his defign implies his great diffatisfaction, at least, with Mr. Pope's tranflation of the Iliad. Thefe thir *He excepts none, and has tranflated one paffage of the Odyffey in his rotes. teen |