ployed his pen in support of their administration. For such services he naturally expected an adequate recompense: but, whether the ministers were unable or unwilling to serve him; whether from distrust or weakness in the party whose cause he had espoused, Swift was dismissed to Ireland, with the deanery of St. Patrick's; a situation attended with such painful privations, that, without having incurred disgrace, he was condemned to banishment. The demise of queen Anne terminated Swift's political existence: involved in the ruin of his party, he experienced the common fate, and only escaped persecution by submitting to obscurity. After a residence of some years in Ireland, which had hitherto repaid his contempt with hatred, he acquired great popularity by his spirited resistance to the introduction of Wood's coinage; a measure dictated by mistaken views of policy, and which was justly reprobated by Swift, as militating against ! the prosperity of that country. On this occasion were published those celebrated letters which procured him the honourable appellation of The Drapier. But neither his popular fame nor his unbounded influence with his compatriots could reconcile him to his estrangement from England: and he ceased not to vent his discontent in sorrows and complaints, till the progress of age and infirmity completely paralysed those mental powers, which had rendered him' a bulwark to one party, and an engine of terror to the other; and which procured for him, in his private station, not only the veneration of Ireland, but the esteem of Europe.

Swift was formed for active life. In his political relations he was not, like Addison, valued merely for his pen, but for himself; for that quickness of perception, that luminous comprehension, which fitted him for the investigation of every subject, and enabled him on every occasion to supply some valuable observations, the result of intuitive sagacity or dis criminative experience. As a writer, he is distinguished by the variety of his attributes. He is at once versatile and vigorous:

3

he

he combines facility with strength. Though not born to be a poet, he was an exquisite versifier on familiar subjects; and in some of his metrical pieces blends the terseness of Pope with the simplicity of Gay. Of this, Baucis and Philemon,' Cadenus and Vanessa,' and, the Verses on his own Death, afford sufficient examples. On political subjects he could be grave and argumentative, or humorous and satirical. Whenever he chose to be didactic, he could descend to the most minute strictures on the occurrences of daily life; yet when he had to construct a fable, he launched into the regions of imagination, and created his own visionary world. It is, however, obvious that his genius directed him to satire; his tact was ridicule, his talent irony; in this were concentrated all his acuteness and sagacity, the sprightliness of his fancy, the poignancy of his wit, the solidity of his judgment. In this style the Tale of a Tub is his masterpiece; nor does the whole compass of English literature offer so many happy specimens in this peculiar province of composition, as were furnished by his single pen. The asperity of his sentiments has been often lamented; but it should be remembered that Swift was formed by that age which he was destined to enlighten and improve. He was not, like Addison, a moral teacher: the coldness of his character seemed inaccessible to the charms and insensible to the charities of social life. His great object was intellect; and he became the champion of reason, by maintaining a constant hostility with error and prejudice. His satire was directed to books rather than to men; and addressed not to manners, but opinions. No delusion could escape his vigilance, no absurdity elude his censure. He ridiculed affectation, caricatured arrogance, and exposed credulity. He spared neither the puerile pursuits of the learned, nor the traditional superstitions of the vulgar. He was equally ready to attack the dogmatism of Burnet and the anilities of Boyle: he rebuked the pedantry of Bentley, and chastised the conjectural vanity of Whiston. The benevolent may revolt from that

mind,

mind, of which the supreme delight appears to have been the detection or the exposition of human infirmities, but a sense of justice should impel them to acknowledge the obligations of English literature to his powerful pen: even the philosophical will not withhold praise from this adversary of philosophers, who, in dispelling those errors which obscured the judgment, accelerated the progress of real science, and contributed to the diffusion of truth.

The history of polite literature necessarily includes that of the drama. The progress of society is often more distinctly marked by the character of its amusements than by the Janguage of those whose avowed object it is to impart instruction. At the æra of the Revolution a most important change is perceptible in public taste. The licentious plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, which, almost to the total exclusion of Shakespeare, had previously occupied the stage, were exploded; and in tragedy at least, decency and propriety of language were expected. The first reformer of the theatre was John Sheffield duke of Buckingham, who was himself accustomed to poetical composition, celebrated as a man of genius by his companions, and considered as a man of wit by his readers. His Essay on Poetry,' which was written under the superintendance, or, as has been suspected, with the assistance of Dryden, contains many good precepts, and exhibits with spirit and propriety the principles of taste. But his more popular work was 'The Rehearsal,' a mock-heroic play, comprising a series of parodies on the extravagant parts of Dryden, Davenant, and Howard, which are exquisitely ludicrous. The duke of Buckingham had exposed the follies of the stage; it was reserved for the famous Collier to reprove its vices. Towards the close of king William's reign, he published An Essay on the Immorality of the Stage; and his arguments being combated by Congreve and other successful dramatists, he found himself involved

in

in a serious controversy, which engaged the attention of the public: succeeding writers became more cautious, as their audience grew more refined.

It is well known that, during the prevalence of that depraved taste, which preferred Beaumont and Fletcher to Shakespeare, Otway and Southern, who approach the nearest to that great master in the power of moving the passions, were not duly appreciated and respected. Neither of these poets possessed that compass of thought, which enabled Shakespeare to penetrate to the recesses of nature: they produced not original character; they only conceived situa tions of powerful interest; they attempted not to unfold, nor to exhibit the progress of the passions from infancy to maturity; they waited for the critical moment of developmert, which they seized with the felicity of the artist, rather than with the energy of the poet. Still their merit was unquestionably great. It would not be easy to find scenes of equal pathos with those of Venice Preserved,' 'Oroonoko' and Isabella.' Southern was the professed admirer of Otway, whom he has perhaps unconsciously imitated in his Oroonoko. On the representation of his first play, The Unhappy Marriage,' Dryden carelessly observed, that he was much such another poet as Otway. It would have been a presumptuous exercise of private judgment, to have preferred Venice Preserved to Antony and Cleopatra; the literary merit of such a poet as Dryden being estimated far beyond the dramatic spirit of such a simple writer as Otway.

In the subsequent reign of Anne these plays were treated with more respect; yet they were not always preferred to the faultless' Cato' of Addison, the insipid translation of Andromache' by Ambrose Phillips, or the classical Phædra' of Smith. It was not till the theatre became a popular amusement; till it was frequented by men and citizens, who aspired not to the appellation of critics or philosophers, that Otway

and

and Southern, or even Shakespeare, received their just meer of applause. At this period, it was the object of Addisori, both by precept and example, to subject the English poet o those rules of criticism which had been prescribed by Aristotle, and embraced by Corneille and Racine. In his own Cato 'he has scrupulously observed the three unities, and his authority prevailed on other writers to adopt his principles; but their limitations were repugnant to English taste. The same good sense which had exploded the Gallican ornament of rhyme, rejected the unities, though sanctioned by the name of "Aristotle, and recommended by the pen of Addison. Of those who followed in this track of singularity, the most erninent was Edward Smith, a man for whom the reputation of a most accomplished scholar seems to have procured that high consideration which is alone due to transcendent genius. Smith was a native of Worcestershire, but received his education under Dr. Busby; and on his removal from Westminster was admitted to Christ-church, Oxford, where he soon established his literary character by his Latin ode❝ On the Death of Dr. Pococke,' the celebrated orientalist, which put him on a level with the first classical writers of the age.

After some years, during which his talents extorted deference, whilst the irregularity of his conduct provoked reproach, he was formally expelled. On leaving Oxford he repaired to London, where he coalesced with the whigs, but owing to his own negligence participated not in their munificence: his tragedy of Phædra was long extravagantly praised by scholars, but proved very unacceptable to the people; and now that the spirit of party has ceased, and the spirit of criticism is expanded, is generally allowed to be as little pleasing to the closet as the stage.

Mr. Smith afterwards began a tragedy on the subject of Lady Jane Grey, but lived not to finish it. The design was afterwards executed by Nicholas Rowe, who was indisputably

the