ments £300 per annum. When Lyttleton fell into disfavour with the prince of Wales, his friends Thomson, West, and Mallet, were all deprived of the pensions which the prince had granted them.

Much of the summer of 1745, and of the autumn of 1746, were spent by Thomson at his friend Shenstone's rural retreat, the Leasowes. A more agreeable situation for the indolent bard could not well have been devised. We can easily imagine him strolling about the shady walks of the Leasowes, with his hands clasped behind his back-as he was once caught eating the sunny side of a peach-or loitering down a summer's afternoon in one of Shenstone's moss houses, and elaborating a stanza per week of his 'Castle of Indolence,' by way of mental exertion. The poem we have just mentioned is said to have been nearly fifteen years in progress. It was published in May, 1748, the year of his death. "There is nothing in the history of verse, from the restoration of Charles II. to the present time,-not even in Collins, we think, and certainly not in Gray,-which can compete with the first part of the Castle of Indolence.' His account of the land of 'Drowsy head,' and

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,'

of the disappearance of the sons of indolence, with the exquisite simile with which it closes, the huge covered tables all odorous with spice and wine, the tapestried halls, and other Italian pictures,-the melancholy music, and altogether the golden magnificence and oriental luxuries of the place, and the ministering spirits who

'Poured all the Arabian heaven upon our nights,'

-an exquisite line-may stand in comparison with almost any thing in the circle of poetry." Such is Mr Babington Macaulay's opinion of the poem; but Mr Hazlitt will not allow that it is Thomson's finest production, or that it contains any passages equal to the best in the 'Seasons.'

Ambrose Philips.

BORN A. D. 1671.-DIED A. D. 1749.

AMBROSE PHILIPS was descended from an old Leicestershire family. He was educated at St John's college, Cambridge, and obtained a fellowship in 1700.

While at college, he is supposed to have written his celebrated 'Pastorals.' In No. 40 of the Guardian, is a paper by Pope on these performances of Philips. "A plan," says Drake, "had been formed, most probably by Addison, Tickell, and Philips, to introduce into the Guardian a set of papers on pastoral poetry, which, after discussing the merits of the ancients, should criticise those among the moderns who had attempted this department, and decidedly give the palm to Philips, who was described as the only legitimate disciple of Theocritus, Virgil, and Spenser. Pope, who had written his pastorals not long after those of his rival, could not patiently endure this decision, and therefore sent this paper for insertion in the Guardian; of which the irony is so

delicate and well-contrived, that, although in the parallelism which he institutes he is always superior, he gives the verdict in favour of Philips, with so much plausibility and art, and with such apparent seriousness and sincerity, that Steele, and the wits at Button's, were, with the exception of Addison, completely deceived; and Sir Richard, though partial to Philips, even hesitated about its publication, lest the severity of the criticism should offend Pope. The result of its insertion was, as might have been expected, an irreconcileable quarrel between the two Arcadians. Philips suspended a rod at Button's for the chastisement, as he affirmed, of his opponent; and Pope, in the first edition of his 'Letters,' complimented his irritated rival with the appellation of ' rascal.' Death only terminated their mutual malevolence." Pope, however, in one instance at least, allowed his rival to be a man "who could write very nobly." The poem which drew forth this acknowledgment was the Winter Piece,' which first appeared in No. 12 of the Tatler. Philips, like most of his literary associates, took a decided part in the politics of the day. His Life of Archbishop Williams,' was a kind of manifesto of his adherence to the whig party. Swift in his journal to Stella, under date the 30th of June, 1711, writes :-" I have had a letter from Mr Philips, the pastoral poet, to get him a certain employment from lord-treasurer. I have now had almost all the whig poets my solicitors; and I have been useful to Congreve, Steele, and Harrison, but I will do nothing for Philips: I find he is more a puppy than ever-so do not so solicit for him.' Swift in fact joined with his friend Pope in holding up the author of the Pastorals' to derision, and nick-named him 'Namby-Pamby' in some lines, which have, however, been attributed to Henry Carey.

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The best poetical production of our author is his tragedy of 'The Distressed Mother,' altered from Racine's Andromaque.' Budgell wrote an admirable epilogue for this piece, which still retains a place among our acting plays. The reader will find some remarks by Steele upon it, in No. 290 of the Spectator, and by Addison, in No 335. Yet, notwithstanding the success of this his first essay as a dramatist, nine years elapsed before Philips again ventured on the boards. In 1721, two tragedies from his pen, entitled 'The Briton,' and 'Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester,' were brought forward; but they were barely endured at the time, and are now forgotten.

In 1718 he commenced the publication of a periodical paper, entitled the 'Freethinker.' One of his coadjutors in this work was Dr Boulter, then the humble minister of a parish in Southwark, but afterwards archbishop of Armagh. On Boulter's elevation and departure for Ireland, he took Philips with him in the quality of secretary, and afterwards procured for him several honourable and lucrative situations in that country. In 1748 he returned to England, with the intention of spending the remainder of his days, now lengthening out into old age, in his native country, and amongst the literary society of the metropolis. But he had scarcely been twelve months in England, when he was seized with palsy, and expired in the 78th of his age. year short time before his decease a complete collection of his poems was published under his own superintendence.

A

Biographical Sketches.

Among the poems of Philips, the Letter from Denmark,' (the "Winter Piece' before referred to,) may be justly praised, says Dr Johnson. "The Pastorals,' continues the same authority, "which by the writer of the 'Guardian' were ranked as one of the four genuine productions of the rustic Muse, cannot surely be despicable. That they exhibit a mode of life which does not exist, nor ever existed, is not to be objected: the supposition of such a state is allowed to Pastoral. In his other poems he cannot be denied the praise of lines sometimes elegant; but he has seldom much force, or much comprehension. The pieces that please best are those which, from Pope and Pope's adherents, procured him the name of 'Namby Pamby,' the poems of short lines, by which he paid his court to all ages and characters, from Walpole, the steerer of the realm,' to Miss Pulteney in the nursery. The numbers are smooth and sprightly, and the diction is seldom faulty. They are not loaded with much thought; yet, if they had been written by Addison, they would have had admirers: little things are not valued but when they are done by those who can do greater.

"In his translations from Pindar he found the art of reaching all the obscurity of the Theban bard, however he may fall below his sublimity; he will be allowed, if he has less fire, to have more smoke.

"He has added nothing to English poetry, yet at least half his book deserves to be read: perhaps he valued most himself that part which the critic would reject."

Aaron Hill.

BORN A. D. 1685.--DIED A. D. 1750.

THE reader has already met with the name of Aaron Hill more than once in some of the preceding sketches. The truth is, the individual now before us occupies a larger space in the literary history of his times, than seems due to his intrinsic merits as a poet and critic. This is to be accounted for, partly by the enthusiasm with which he cultivated literature and the society of literary men, and partly by the fact that his suavity of manners, and gentle disposition, secured him many friends in an age by no means remarkable for brotherly feeling among its literary men. He was the eldest son of George Hill, Esq. of Malmsburyabbey, Wiltshire; and was born in London, in the month of February, 1685. When nine years old he was sent to Westminster school, then taught by Dr Knipe. Here he remained five years, at the end of which period he conceived and executed a singular project.

Lord Paget, an ambassador at Constantinople, was related to the Hills of Malmsbury; and young Hill, having a strong desire to see the world, boldly placed himself on board a vessel sailing for Constantinople, and set out to visit his noble relative at the juvenile age of four

teen.

His lordship received his young visitor with great cordiality, and furnished him with the means of extending his travels to Egypt and Palestine. He returned to England in 1703, in the train of his noble relative, and had an opportunity of further extending his knowledge of the world, by visiting most of the courts of Europe, during the journey homewards. Lord Paget's death, however, soon after his arrival in

England, deprived our young traveller of a kind friend and valuable patron.

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In 1709 Mr Hill commenced author by the publication of a History of the Ottoman empire.' This work was upon the whole well-received, although the author himself never liked to hear its name mentioned in after years. In this same year, Hill published some laudatory verses on the earl of Peterborough's exploits in Spain. They are entitled 'Camillus,' and possess little merit, although they found high favour with their hero himself, who immediately appointed Hill his secretary. Soon after the publication of these two pieces, Hill, at the instigation of Barton Booth, wrote a tragedy entitled Elfrid, or the Fair Inconstant.' It is said he produced this piece in the course of a single week, so that it is no wonder it should be, as he himself describes it, an unpruned wilderness of fancy, with here and there a flower among the leaves, but without any fruit of judgment." He afterwards altered it considerably, and brought it out again under the title of Athelwold.' In 1710 he produced the opera of 'Rinaldo,' for which Handel composed music. Hill had now become director of the king's theatre in the Haymarket,—an office, the duties of which he appears to have discharged to the satisfaction of the public, although he was soon driven from it by one of those private cabals, of which the green room appears the fated region.

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Hill was a great projector. In 1715 he issued prospectuses for the formation of a joint-stock company for making oil from beech-nuts! The projector appeared quite sanguine of success, and ventured to predict that he would soon annihilate the importation of olive-oil into this country, by the produce of his beech presses; the subscription list too was soon filled up, but the directors quarrelled amongst themselves, and the beech-oil scheme was finally abandoned. He was next engaged with Sir Robert Montgomery, in planning an extensive colonial settlement in that portion of North America, now called Georgia. His limited funds, however, imposed such a restraint upon his colonization schemes that they were ultimately abandoned. Some years afterwards, he directed his attention to the timber-forests in the north of Scotland, and the practicability of turning them to account for naval purposes. In this enterprise he engaged for a time with great vigour and resolution, and exhibited no small command over the resources of engineering science; but the scheme failed for want of due support from the proprietors of the timber, and the unconquerable indolence of the native peasantry. His last project was that of making pot-ash.

Mr Hill retired from London into the country about the year 1738, in the possession of a moderate competence, chiefly arising from his wife's handsome fortune. In his retirement he addicted himself chiefly to poetry, and produced several pieces which appear in the edition of his collected works in four volumes 8vo. His adaptation of Voltaire's tragedy of 'Merope,' was the last work he lived to complete. He died in 1750.

Pope has introduced Hill into his 'Dunciad,' as one of the competitors for the prize offered by the goddess of Dulness. He has done so, however, in a manner bordering more on compliment than satire surely.

"Then Hill essayed: scarce vanished out of sight,
He buoys up instant, and returns to light,

He bears no token of the sabler streams,

And mounts far off among the swans of Thames."

Yet Hill felt somewhat aggrieved by his being introduced at all among the votaries of the Dull goddess, and retaliated in a poem entitled The Progress of Wit, a Caveat for the use of an eminent writer,' which begins thus :—

"Tuneful Alexis, on the Thames' fair side,

The ladies' play-thing, and the muses' pride,-
With merit popular, with wit polite,

Easy though vain, and elegant though light,—
Desiring and deserving others' praise,-

Poorly accepts a fame he ne'er repays :
Unborn to cherish, sneakingly approves,

And wants the soul to spread the worth he loves"

William Cheselden.

BORN A. D. 1688.-DIED A. D. 1751.

THIS eminent surgeon and anatomist was a native of Leicestershire, and a pupil of the celebrated anatomists Cowper and Ferne. He began to read lectures himself at the early age of twenty-two, and was chosen a member of the Royal society when little more than twenty-three. In 1713 he published his Anatomy of the Human Body,' which immediately became the most popular text book in the English theatre of anatomy.

Cheselden's fame as an anatomical lecturer drew many students to the metropolis. He was elected head-surgeon of St Thomas's hospital on the retirement of Mr Ferne, and was also appointed consulting surgeon to St George's hospital, and the Westminster infirmary. He was particularly distinguished as a lithotomist; but his publication on the 'High operation for the stone,' involved him in much dispute with several of his professional brethren. In 1728 he performed a successful couching operation on a boy of fourteen, who is supposed to have been born blind. This celebrated case has been frequently referred to by writers on the theory and phenomena of vision. In 1729, Cheselden was elected a corresponding member of the Royal academy of sciences at Paris. In 1733 he published his Osteography, or Anatomy of the Bones.' This splendid publication was attended with a great pecuniary loss on the part of its author, besides being attacked in a very virulent manner by some of the profession. The encomiums of the foreign anatomists Haller and Heister, must however have amply consoled the author for any petulant criticisms from other quarters. He died in 1752.

Cheselden's great merit was the simplicity and accuracy of his surgical practice. He laid aside the operose and unwieldy instruments which had been introduced from the French practice; and employed the simplest and most direct operations, to which his consummate anatomical skill rendered him in all cases perfectly competent. He was the friend and associate of Pope, who valued him highly for his literary as well as professional accomplishments.