ill-directed, was fincere and genuine. It is with pleasure we can take our leave of him by a fair and favourable acknowledgment of his virtue and piety. We are forry to think, fo wellmeaning and fo good a man fhould labour under fuch inveterate prejudices: and that, to fpare his character, those allowances must be made for his conduct, which he, with all his lenity and good nature, knew not how to grant to any who differed from him. His good name and reputation have hitherto been tenderly treated his biographer hath occafioned them to be more minutely examined. How they will bear this enquiry, let him, look to it, who hath thus disturbed his afhes, and made the elogium of his hero the vehicle of fcornfully traducing the religion of his country, of insulting the memory of those worthies who are fo juftly dear to it, and of recommending those horrid intolerant principles, which enforced the naturally mild and eafy Pole to become an inquifitor and a perfecutor. The cruelties, however, which were so wantonly exercised by him and others, in their day of power, have been attended with many providentially good effects, which are ftill felt amongst us: they difcovered the true fanguinary spirit of popery; they promoted the cause of the reformation, and excited in our an cestors, the utmoft indignation against and contempt for that religion, which took inhuman methods to preferve its establishment. The blood of the martyrs proved the feed of the proteftant church many, who in the beginning of Mary's reign were rigid papifts, were converted by the cruel executions, and patient fufferings of those whom they faw condemned to the flames for no crime; but only for confcience fake and fome made an atonement for their former blindness and fuperftition, and died in defence of that religion they had before oppofed. By thefe means, to use the words of the venerable, expiring Latimer, fuch a candle was lighted in England, as, we truft, by God's grace fhall never be extinguished. AMEN! This fummary view of Pole's character appears to be fo candid as well as juft, that we think it cannot fail of doing honour to that of our Author himfelf: of whom we here take leave;-with our hearty thanks for the fatisfaction afforded us in the perufal of a work which appears to have been compiled with great labour, finished with equal accuracy, and penned with as much fpirit and vivacity as can poffibly be expected in a compofition of fuch a nature, For our account of the first part of Mr. Phillips's work, we refer to Review, Vol. XXXI. p. 130;-of the fecond part, to Vol. XXXII. p. 139: fee alfo our account of Mr. Ridley's Review of the fame work, in our thirty-third Vol. p. 473. Solitude, Solituda, or the Elfum of the Posts, a Vifion. To which is fubjoined, an Elegy, 4to. 2s. 6d. Burnet, IN N the courfe of Mr. Ogilvie's publications, of which this is one, we have been so attentive to the various merit of that ingenious gentleman, and fo induftrious to promote his reputa-! tion as a poet, that we are perfuaded he will impute those ftric-. tures we may find occafion to make in the review of this flight poem, to their true motive; and conclude, when we inform him of what we think exceptionable or liable to cenfure, that we are only defirous of his preferving that reputation, to the effablifhment of which we have always, with so much pleafure, confributed our mite. We fhall, first of all, give our Readers part of Mr. Ogilvie's account of his plan. It is the defign of the following poem, fays he, to give the English reader an idea, in as fhort a compafs as poffible, of the character, merit, and difcriminating excellencies of the most eminent British poets. In order to give the feveral figures in the following piece, as nearly as poffible, their just proportions and importance, the Author hath endeavoured to defcribe each of these in that manner which he conceived to be moft suitable; and with that drapery,, which he fuppofed to be at once the jufteft, and the moft ornamental. With this view it was, that inftead of giving fimply a detail of the writings of these great geniufes, and of infifting particularly upon their feparate excellencies, he hath contrived a kind of poetical Elyfium as the place of their refidence; and bath attempted to imprefs fome idea of their characters upon the mind of the Reader, by adjusting the external feenery to the manners of the perfón who is fuppofed to be placed in it. After this apparatus, the bard is introduced in an attitude adapted to this ftrain of compofition; and he amuses himself in his Elyfium, by reciting to the mufic of the pipe, or the lyre, the different fubjects of which he had formerly treated. The Author propofed indeed, at first, to have made each of the poets fpeak in his own perfon, and refume fome part of his works, in a stile fomewhat fimilar to that which he might conceive him to employ. Though this method is really taken in the cafe of Pope, Thomfon, and Denham; yet he found upon reflection, that a conftant adherence to it would not only have fpoiled the reader's entertainment, by rendering the narrative part of the poem altogether difproportioned to the defcriptive; but after all, the happieft, execution (unless he had run the narration to a very great length) could have conveyed no adequate idea of the different fpecies of poetical compofition in which fome of them excelled. Upon the whole, therefore, he determined to make ufe of both methods; fometimes narrating himself the themes of the the poet, and fometimes making him infift at length, upon thofe which are either in themselves molt important, or in which he excelled moft particularly, as anfwering most fully the defign of this work. • Though the Author propofed, by taking the courfe already mentioned, to avoid an extreme on either fide; yet he is fufficiently aware, that fome Readers will cenfure him for having rendered, at least, the first part of the poem almoft wholly de feriptive. They will be apt to fuggeft, that even the richest imagery dazzles and fatigues the mind, when the feries of moral obfervation does not, upon fome occafions, contribute to relieve it. Without difputing the truth of this general remark, the Writer would only vindicate his own conduct in the prefent inftance from its being unavoidable. The fcene with which the poem opens, the cell of Solitude, the climes through which the palled, and the Elyfum into which the opened an admission ;→→→→ thefe objects naturally require the graces of defcription, perhaps in a much higher degree than they are beftowed in this poem. As to the poets themselves, the Author hath endeavoured to speak of them with propriety, and to make thofe who recite the fubjects of their own writings, run into fuck a vein of fentiment, as he conceived to be leaft unappropriated to their feparate profeffions. The moral obfervations which arife from particular parts, he choosed rather to throw together in a connected series at the end, than to fcatter loafely through the work. In difcuffing the feveral parts of a plan in itself fe complicated, and requiring a ftile of compofition fo conftantly diverfified; in fuch a performance, the Reader who hall expect to fee equal justice done to every character, and his own idea of it perfectly exhibited, will form an expectation which no effort whatever will compleatly gratify. Admitting that the Author of the following attempt, may have spoke too flightly of a favourite poet, and too warmly of one to whom his, reader will allow a lefs fhare of merit; yet furely the perfon who makes this remark, will be polite enough to indulge another (when he is not grofly faulty) in prejudices fimilar, perhaps, to those which he enjoys himself without cenfure. He will permit him to bestow the moft lively colouring, not merely where acknowledged fuperiority rendered it expedient, but where he found it eafieft to catch a particular manner, from fome real or fuppofed refemblance which it might have to his own. Another fet of Readers may probably, at firft view, be offended with the order in which the poets are arranged; Milton being feemingly preferred to Shakespeare, as Thomson is to Pope. Without enquiring into the comparative merit of these writers, which would be altogether improper here, the Author would only obferve, that he placed them in their present order, to to avoid that uniformity of defcription which must have resulted from any other difpofition. The fimilarity of character betwixt Shakespeare and Spencer (both of whom were more indebted to nature than to education) would have unavoidably occafioned a correfponding fimilarity of imagery and sentiment, had the one of thefe immediately followed the other; an inconveniency which is wholly fuperfeded, by placing Milton betwixt them.-The peculiar circumftances of Offian difcriminate him fufficiently from all other poets. Pope ftands indeed betwixt Thomson and Dryden, as the Effay on Man affords a noble train of fentiments to fum up the illuftrious detail of the moft eminent British poets; and the two laft mentioned differ fo much, at least in point of correctness, that it was easy to diversify the scenery in which they are placed.' The poem opens with an invocation to Fancy, who foon appears, and expreffes her fublime fentiments in the following ftanzas: "OYE, whom Nature's genial charms infpire, (Thus fpoke the goddefs of the thought fublime) Whose hope o'erfhoots the lingering flight of Time! Of wealth allures, nor Grandeur's tinfell'd plume; Can melt o'er Virtue's unlamented tomb: Ye, who thro' Modefty's involving veil Can mark the features of a godlike mind, Not thefe have eyed bright Fancy's genial ray, Tis mine to give. Though from the starry throne, Yet, where wild Solitude's refounding dome And And Thou, whofe feet to this deferted bower Hath bled (for man is deftin'd to endure ;) If prone to feel the grief thou can't not cure; I lead, where yet to human ftep unknown, Brave the rade storm, and reach th' appointed fhore." In the expreffion of "Solitude's refounding dome" it is natural at firft to doubt the propriety of the epithet refounding; filence being generally the concomitant of folitude: but when we reflect that in fuch fcenes the leaft motion is fooneft heard by means of the general filence, when we find afterwards that the cell of Solitude is in the ruins of an old tower, and call to mind the Domus Albuneæ refonantis of Horace, we are easily reconciled to it. Fancy, in her progrefs to the abode of Solitude, paffes by the cave of Darkness; whofe inhabitants are thus poetically defcribed: There pin'd pale Envy in the cavern dun, There Time deep furrowing plough'd the front of Care; Despair, with curfes, eyed the winking moon, And Frenzy howling tore her tangled hair. Thefe, as the radiant goddess flash'd along, Shrunk from the ray that lighten'd o'er her frame : Such rapid fate diffolves the infect-throng, When the black whirlwind rides the wings of Flame. We confefs that we are diffatisfied with the fimile conveyed in the two laft lines;-the diction and imagery are, in our opinion, infinitely too magnificent for the object; for when Flame and Whirlwind combine to kill a fly, though that were not their immediate purpose, the action is a kind of bathos. In the description of a flowery lawn we find the following ftanza: There hang the violet its dejected head, The lily languifh'd to the fighing gale; There |