numbers, accuracy of thought, nor elegance of diction: it has either been written with great care, or, what cannot be imagined of so long a work, with such felicity as made care less necessary.

Its two constituent parts are ratiocination and description. To reason in verse is allowed to be difficult; but Blackmore not only reasons in verse, but very often reasons poetically, and finds the art of uniting ornament with strength, and ease with closeness. This is a skill which Pope might have condescended to learn from him, when he needed it so much in his Moral Essays.

In his descriptions both of life and nature, the poet and the philosopher happily co-operate; truth is rẻcommended by elegance, and elegance sustained by truth.

In the structure and order of the poem, not only the greater parts are properly consecutive, but the didactic and illustrative paragraphs are so happily mingled, that labour is relieved by pleasure, and the attention is led on through a long succession of varied excellence to the original position, the fundamental principle of wisdom and of virtue.

As the heroic poems of Blackmore are now little read, it is thought proper to insert, as a specimen from Prince Arthur, the song of Mopas mentioned by Moli

neaux.

But that which Arthur with most pleasure heard
Were noble strains, by Mopas sung the bard,
Who to his harp in lofty verse began,
And through the secret maze of nature ran.
He the Great Spirit sung, that all things fill'd,
That the tumultuous waves of chaos still'd;
Whose nod dispos'd the jarring seeds to peace,
And made the wars of hostile atoms cease.
All beings, we in fruitful nature find,
Proceeded from the Great Eternal Mind;

Streams of his unexhausted spring of power,
And, cherish'd with his influence, endure.
He spread the pure cerulian fields on high,
And arch'd the chambers of the vaulted sky,
Which he, to suit their glory with their height,
Adorn'd with globes, that reel, as drunk with light.
His hand directed all the tuneful spheres,

He turn'd their orbs and polish'd all the stars.
He fill'd the sun's vast lamp with golden light,
And bid the silver moon adorn the night.

He spread the airy ocean without shores,
Where birds are wafted with their feather'd oars.
Then sung the bard how the light vapours rise
From the warm earth, and cloud the smiling skies:
He sung how some, chill'd in their airy flight,
Fall scatter'd down in pearly dew by night;
How some,
rais'd higher, sit in secret streams
On the reflected points of bounding beams,
Till, chill'd with cold, they shade th' ethereal plain,
Then on the thirsty earth descend in rain;
How some, whose parts a slight contexture show,
Sink, hovering through the air, in fleecy snow;
How part is spun in silken threads, and clings
Entangled in the grass in glewy strings;
How others stamp to stones, with rushing sound
Fall from their chrystal quarries to the ground;
How some are laid in trains, that kindled fly,
In harmless fires by night, about the sky;
How some in winds blow with impetuous force,
And carry ruin where they bend their course,
While some conspire to form a gentle breeze,
To fan the air, and play among the trees;
How some, enraged, grow turbulent and loud,
Pent in the bowels of a frowning cloud,

That cracks, as if the axis of the world

Was broke, and heaven's bright towers were downwards hurl'd.

He sung how earth's wide ball, at Jove's command,

Did in the midst on airy culumns stand ;

And how the soul of plants, in prison held,
And bound with sluggish fetters, lies conceal'd,
Till, with the Spring's warm beams, almost releas'd
From the dull weight with which it lay opprest,
Its vigour spreads, and makes the teeming earth
Heave up, and labour with the sprouting birth:
The active spirit freedom seeks in vain,
It only works and twists a stronger chain;
Urging its prison's sides to break away,
It makes that wider where 'tis forced to stay:
Till, having form'd its living house, it rears
Its head, and in a tender plant appears.

Hence springs the oak, the beauty of the grove,
Whose stately trunk fierce storms can scarcely move.
Hence grows the cedar, hence the swelling vine
Does round the elm its purple clusters twine.
Hence painted flowers the smiling gardens bless,
Both with their fragrant scent and gaudy dress.
Hence the white lily in full beauty grows,
Hence the blue violet, and blushing rose.
He sung how sun-beams brood upon the earth,
And in the glebe hatch such a numerous birth;
Which way the genial warmth in Summer storms
Turns putrid vapours to a bed of worms;
How rain, transform'd by this prolific power,
Falls from the clouds an animated shower.
He sung the embryo's growth within the womb,
And how the parts their various shapes assume;
With what rare art the wondrous structure's wrought
From one crude mass to such perfection brought;
That no part useless, none misplac'd we see,
None are forgot, and more would monstrous be.

FENTON.

THE

HE brevity with which I am to write the account of ELIJAH FENTON is not the effect of indiffer ence or negligence. I have sought intelligence among his relations in his native country, but have not obtained it.

He was born near Newcastle in Staffordshire, of an ancient family,* whose estate was very considerable;

* He was born at Shelton, near Newcastle, May 20, 1683; and was the youngest of eleven children of John Fenton, an attorney at law, and one of the coroners of the county of Stafford. His father died in 1694; and his grave, in the churchyard of Stoke upon Trent, is distinguished by the following elegant Latin inscription from the pen of his son :

H. S. E.

JOHANNES FENTON

de Shelton

antiqua stirpe generosus :
juxta reliquias conjugis

CATHARINE

forma, moribus, pietate,
optimo viro dignissimæ :
Qui

intemerata in ecclesiam fide,

et virtutibus intaminatis enituit;

necnon ingenii lepore
bonis artibus expoliti,

but he was the youngest of eleven children, and being therefore necessarily destined to some lucrative employment was sent first to school, and afterwards to

*

Cambridge, but, with many other wise and virtuous men, who at that time of discord and debate consulted conscience, whether well or ill informed, more than interest, he doubted the legality of the government, and refusing to qualify himself for public employment by the oaths required, left the university without a degree; but I never heard that the enthusiasm of opposition impelled him to separation from the church.

By this perverseness of integrity he was driven out a commoner of nature, excluded from the regular modes of profit and prosperity, and reduced to pick up a livelihood uncertain and fortuitous; but it must be remembered that he kept his name unsullied, and never suffered himself to be reduced, like too many of the same sect, to mean arts and dishonourable shifts. Whoever mentioned Fenton, mentioned him with honour.

The life that passes in penury must necessarily pass in obscurity. It is impossible to trace Fenton from year to year, or to discover what means he used for his support. He was awhile secretary to Charles earl of Orrery in Flanders, and tutor to his young son, who after

See Gent. Mag. 1791, vol. LXI. p. 703. N.

* He was entered of Jesus college, and took a bachelor's degree in 1704; but it appears by the list of Cambridge gra duates that he removed in 1726 to Trinity Hall, N.