has undoubtedly a just claim to very particular notice, as an example of great felicity of genius, and uncommon amplitude of acquisitions, of a young mind stored with images, and much exercised in combining and comparing them.”

"The subject is well chosen, as it includes all images that can strike or please, and thus comprises every species of poetical delight. The only difficulty is in the choice of examples and illustra tions; and it is not easy in such exuberance of matter to find the middle point between penury and satiety. The parts seem artificially disposed, with sufficient coherence, so as that they cannot change their places without injury to the general design.

"His images are displayed with such luxuriance of expression that they are hidden, like Butler's moon, by a veil of light; they are forms fantastically lost under superfluity of dress. Pars minima est ipsa puella sui. The words are multiplied till the sense is hardly perceived; attention deserts the mind. and settles in the ear. The reader wanders through the gay diffusion, sometimes amazed, and sometimes delighted but, after many turnings in the flowery labyrinth, comes out as he went in. He remarked little, and laid hold on nothing.

"To his versification justice requires that praise should not be denied. In the general fabrication of his lines he is perhaps superior to any other writer of blank verse.

"His diction is certainly so far poetical as it is not prosaic, and so far valuable as it is not common.

He is to be commended as having fewer artifices of disgust than most of his brethren of the blank

song.

Of his other poetry Dr. Johnson speaks slightingly.

LYTTLETON.

GEORGE LYTTLETON, the son of Sir Thomas Lyttleton, of Hagley in Worcestershire, was born in 1709. He was educated at Eton, where he was much distinguished among his school-fellows. From Eton he went to Christ Church College at Oxford, where he retained the same reputation of superiority, and displayed his abilities to the public in a poem, on "Blenheim." He was a very early writer both in verse and prose. His "Progress of Love" and his "Persian Letters" were both written when he was very young.

He staid not long at Oxford, for in 1728 he began his travels, and saw France and Italy. When he returned, he obtained a seat in Parliament, and soon distinguished himself among the most eager opponents of Sir Robert Walpole. For many years the name of George Lyttleton was seen as an oppositionist in every account of every debate in the House of Commons.

The Prince of Wales, being (1737) driven from the court, opened his arms to the opponents of the ministry. Mr. Lyttleton was made his secretary, Mallet, his under-secretary, and Thomson had a pension.

While Lyttleton thus stood conspicuous in the first rank of opposition, he married (1741) Miss Lucy Fortescuse of Devonshire, by whom he had a son, the late Lord Lyttleton, and two daughters. He was unfortunately deprived of her in about five years afterwards, and he solaced his grief by writing a long poem to her memory.

He did not however condemn himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow, for after a while he was content to seek happiness again by a second marriage with the daughter of Sir Robert Rich; but the experiment was unsuccessful.

At length, after a long struggle, Walpole gave way, and honour and profit were distributed among his conquerors. Lyttleton was made (1744) one of the Lords of the Treasury, and from that time was engaged in supporting the schemes of the ministry.

In 1751 his father died, when he inherited a baronet's title with a large estate. He still continued his exertions in Parliament, and was made (1754) Cofferer and Privy Counsellor: this place he exchanged next year for the great office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The subsequent year his curiosity led him into Wales, and soon after he published his "Dialogues of the Dead.”

When, in the latter part of the last reign, the inauspicious commencement of the war made the dissolution of the ministry unavoidable, Sir George Lyttleton, losing his employment with the rest, was recompensed with a peerage,

His last literary production was his "History of Henry the Second," elaborated by the researches and deliberations of twenty years. After living to see this work most favourably received by the public, he was seized with his last illness, and died the twenty-second of August 1773, aged 64 years. "Lord Lyttleton's poems are the works of a man of literature and judgment devoting part of his time to versification. They have nothing to be despised, and little to be admired. Of his "Progress of Love," it is sufficient blame to say that it is pastoral. His blank verse in "Blenheim" has neither much force nor much elegance. His little performances, whether songs or epigrams, are sometimes sprightly, and sometimes insipid. His epistolary pieces have a smooth equability, which cannot much tire, be- cause they are short, but which seldom elevates or surprises. But from this censure ought to be excepted his "Advice to Belinda," which, though for the most part written when he was very young, contains much truth and much prudence, very elegantly and vigorously expressed, and shews a mind attentive to life, and a power of poetry which cultivation might have raised to excellence."

GRAY.

THOMAS GRAY, the son of Mr. Philip Gray, a scrivener of London, was born in Cornhill 1716. His grammar education he received at Eton, and

when he left school, in 1734, entered a pensioner at Peterhouse in Cambridge.

After he had remained there about five years, where he took no degree (as he intended to follow the common law ), Mr. Horace Walpole invited him to travel with him as his companion. They wandered through France into Italy, but at Florence they quarrelled and parted. Gray returned to England in September 1741, and in about two months afterwards buried his father, who had, by an injudicious waste of money upon a new house, so much lessened his fortune that Gray thought himself too poor to study the law. He therefore retired to Cambridge, where he soon after became Bachelor of Civil Law, and where he passed, except a short residence at London, the rest of his life.

Being advised not to finish a tragedy which he began of the name of "Agrippina," he produced in 1742 the" Ode to Spring," his " Prospect of Eton," and his " Ode to Adversity. He began likewise a Latin poem " De Principiis Cogitandi.

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In his retirement at Peterhouse he wrote (1747) an ode on the "Death of Mr. Walpole's Cat," and the year afterwards attempted a poem of more importance on "Government and Education," of which the fragments that remain have many excellent lines.

His next production (1750) was his far-famed "Elegy in the Church-yard," which, finding its way into a magazine, first made him known to