the paucity of information which can be gleaned from the ancients, concerning Druidical religion, has contracted the imagery of the poet. The hymn, Hail Hefus, hail!' has the moit ftrength. 6 There are, in all thefe plays, many imperfect lines, and fome other symptoms of hafty compofition; befide imitations, one of Milton, p. 17, and fome of Offian, which approach too near to the original. The notes interfperfed among these poems, evince much more than a curfory acquaintance with Greek and Latin claffics. Dr. S.'s knowlege of northern mythology feems rather derived from Mallet, than from the original fources at leaft it does not appear that he is familiarly acquainted with the Scandinavian dialects; or that he has turned over, with anxious induftry, the pages of Sæmund and Snorro, of Bartholinus and Refenius. There are, certainly, two paffages which fhould not have efcaped a perfon otherwife acquainted with the Icelandic Sagas, than through the ufual verfions. The one is found in a note to the ode, beginDing, What founds celeftial float And charm the listening gods! The author, in a remark on this paffage, afferts, that the Scandinavians had the fame opinion of the musical powers of the fwan, as the Greeks and Romans entertained. Independently of the great natural improbability of fuch a coincidence of unfounded fuperftition, is not the fole authority for this affertion, the line, "Saung u is Vana," which occurs in an ode put into the mouth of Niord, and quoted by Mallet? Should not this ode have been tranflated thus? "How I abhor thy mountainous abode! There I have paffed nine nights of wearinefs. There is heard only the howl of the wolf; not the fong of the Vauns, the firayers on the ocean's brim." The Vauns were a fpecies of mermaids, venerated by the Gothic idolaters. For Vauns, fome tranflators have fubftituted fwans ; and their error has been adopted by Dr. Sayers in common with Mallet and with Klopflock. The second inftance is an annotation on the paffage, When Vithri drives the finging fpear Deep in the hero's fteel-clad breaft, His foul immortal mounts on high, And climbs the airy hall of gods :' where where Vithri is afferted to have been a name of Hela, or death. Vithri never occurs in the Sagas, but as defcriptive of Odin, who was indeed a god of death, though a perfonage totally diftinct from Hela. Vithri fignifies the bountiful, and was an epithet applied to the god who flays in battle, on account of the bounteous recompence of felicity which awaited. those whom he configned to the Valkyriur, the conductreffes of heroes to Valhalla. We have been the more minute in our remarks on this head, as Dr. Sayers, at the conclufion of his preface, feems to intimate a difpofition to undertake an account of the Northern mythologies. Such a work is much wanted: but he ought to be aware of its difficulties. If well executed, it could not but obtain a favourable reception from an age diftinguished for its attention to elegant antiquities. It is to be hoped too, that, in the progrefs of fuch an inquiry, his Mufe would meet with new temptations to exertion. Plutarch obferved of Menander, that his later excelled his earlier productions; and fuch has often been the tendency of poetic genius. What might we not therefore expect from an author who, in a first attempt, has difplayed fo eminent a degree of tafte and energy? He has unqueftionably the merit of having felected, from the Gothic mythological fyftem, features highly adapted to poetical effect; and he has clothed them in an attractive drefs. The portions which he has brought into view, have alfo, in a great degree, the merit of novelty; and they form a valuable addition to thofe with which Gray, Jerningham, and Hole *, have already familiarized the English reader. Anon. Vaylor ART. III. The Revelations tranflated, and explained throughout, *Author of Arthur, &c. See our laft Number. + Page ii. • Confider 1th Art. Confider it as a tragedy, and it is as perfect as the dipus Tyrannus, the perfection whereof confifts in this, that it is the unravelling of a plot, which is prior and anterior to the action.-Let us fuppofe the plot to be already formed in the Antichriftian Spirit, defcribed in the feven churches, and let the drama open with the temple scene, and now the feals, the trumpets, and the vials unfold the plot:-and though the Antichrift does not die, no more than Edipus, yet he falls into fuch calamity, as makes him an object of pity, and juftifies the lamentation pronounced on his downfall.Again, it may be compared with beauty and harmony to the Odys fey of Homer, when the wrath having in the Iliad been fatisfied and fulfilled by blood, as in this book by the bloody facrifice of Chrift's death, a new fcene opens, and Ulyffes or the human Spirit fets out on its way home to its kingdom, or Jerufalem, and to its Penelope or bride, as in the book.-The fuitors will well reprefent the falfe Church, or the vaffals of Popery, who under pretence of courting the bride, establish themselves in her houfe, eat up her fubftance, played the king in her dominions, and gave themselves to jollities, feaftings, and pleafures, with an implacable enmity conceived in their hearts against the Lord of the house and his Son, -till they under a providence effect their return, and accomplish revenge on the fuitors their enemies.-And in truth, both the Iliad and Ŏdyffey appear to me, to be founded on a deep and mystical moral. For what is the Iliad, but the Jewish Church in fact, a wrath awakened and appeafed only by blood?-And what the Odyffey, but Chriftianity, and the recovery under a providential grace, of a lot bride and kingdom?-The very name of Ulyffes imports as much, Odos coos, the fafe way. It is impoffible for any man to read thofe poems, if he confider their antiquity, their original invention, and at the fame time perfection, without a confufion and amazement of spirit, and a thought too, that there is fomething in that old verfe, which Apollo is made to pronounce upon them, Οι Ηείδαν μεν Εγωγ, έχαρασσε δε διος Ομηρος. A writer who can difcover the Jewish church in the Iliad, and Chriftianity in the Odyffey, may certainly find whatever he pleafes in the book of Revelations but it is not equally certain, that he is qualified to detect the fallacies of JOSEPH MEDE, and to prove him miftaken, falfe, and erroneous +. Though the author profeffes to have lighted the taper of God's truth from the kindled incenfe of prayers,' and though he may expect that it will flame like a firebrand, fling and bounce, and run fingeing and fcorching whatever it touches,' we have been fo unfortunate as not to receive from this flaming taper, a fingle ray to guide us through this region of darkness.E. * Introduct. p. xxix. + Ibid. p. lxii. ↑ Ibid. p. lxiv. ART. ART. IV. The Works, in Verfe and Profe, of Leonard Welfted, Efq. fome time Clerk in Ordinary at the Office of Ordnance in the Tower of London. Now first collected. With Hiftorical Notes, and Biographical Memoirs of the Author. By John Nichols. 8vo. pp. 540. 6s. Boards. Nichols. 1789. THE "HE author, who is here brought back from the fhades by the powerful wand of his editor, flourished in what is fometimes, though perhaps with no great propriety, called the Auguftan Age of English Literature. From the memoirs prefixed to this republication, it appears, that Welfted was wantonly traduced, both as a gentleman and as a poet. Mr. Nichols has laudably endeavoured, and not without fuccefs, to restore to him the wreath of fame, of which he was purloined by his contemporaries. His pieces, though they bear evident marks of negligence, at the same time difcover a fufficient portion of genius, to deserve the pains which his editor has taken to rescue him from oblivion. From the Memoirs of Mr. Welfted, we shall felect the following account of the treatment which he received from the celebrated author of the Dunciad, and his friends: In 1717 Mr. Welfted wrote "The Genius, on Occafion of the Duke of Marlborough's Apoplexy;" an Ode much commended by Steele, and fo generally admired as to be attributed to Addison. In the fame year Mr. Welfted published "The Triumvirate, or a Letter in Verfe from Palemon to Celia from Bath," which was a direct fatire on "Three Hours after Marriage," the unfuccefsful dramatic attempt of Gay, Arbuthnot, and Pope. This was an inexpiable offence with the Bard of Twit'nam; who took his In the "Letters of eminent Perfons," Mr. Duncombe ob. ferves," If Mr. Welited had written nothing else, or at least if he had not offended Mr. Pope by his Triumvirate,' he would scarcely have been pilloried in The Dunciad.--It was to this poem, rather than to the "One Epistle to Mr. Pope," that a polite allufon is mace in the “ Epiftle to Dr. Arbuthnot," published in Jan. 1735-6. "Full ten years flander'd, did he once reply? "Three thousand funs went down on Welfted's lye." "It was fo long," adds the note, "after many libels before the author of the Dunciad published that poem, till when, he never writ a word in answer to the many fcurrilities and falfehoods concerning him."-Again, "This man [Weifted] had the impudence to tell in print, that Mr. P. had occafioned a lady's death, and to name a perfon he never heard of. He also published that he libelled the Duke of Chandos; with whom (it was added) he had lived in familiarity, and received from him a prefent of five hundred pounds: the falfehood of both which is known to his Grace. Mr. P. never received his revenge by giving Welfted a confpicuous niche in "The Dun ciad." Speaking of the dull lordly Patron, on whom "With ready quills the dedicators wait," he fays, "Welfed his mouth with claffic flattery opes, The more thou tickleft, gripes his fift the fafter t.” And after plunging Concannen to the bottom of that fable ftream, where he adds, "Th' unconscious flood fleeps o'er him like a lake,” "Not Welfted fo: drawn endlong by his fcull, Whirlpools and ftorms his circling arm inveft, Downward to climb, and backward to advance. 66 Again, received any prefent, farther than the fubfcription for Homer, from him, or from Any great Man whatfoever." POPE.-The circumftance of the lady's death," did not appear till two years after the provocation given in the Dunciad. How far the infinuation might be grounded, I confefs myfelf unable to develope.'-On the prefent from the Duke of Chandos, the annotator refers to what Dr. Johnfon has faid on the fubject. *Welfted, in his turn, retorted in feveral of the fquibs which fpeedily followed the publication of "The Dunciad." To fhew the verfatility of Pope, take the lines as differently applied in later editions: 66 Bentley his mouth with claffic flattery opes, And the puff'd orator bursts out in tropes. The more thou tickleft, gripes his fift the fafter." Book II. 205. ed. 1779.' "The ftrength of the metaphors in this paflage is to exprefs the great fcurrility and fury of this writer, which may be feen one day in a piece of his, called (as I think) Labeo." POPE.-This Q. To what does this allude? Mr. Cooke, in one of his Epiftles, June 1726, obferves of England, that, as at once the fertile country breeds paffage |