The poetical works of Joseph Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase. With memoirs and critical dissertations, by the Rev. George Gilfillan.

THE LIFE OF WILLIAM SOMERVILLE. 319
son," on the latter purchasing an estate in VWarwickshire (he
gave his Countess ~4000 in exchange for it). In this there
are two lines which Dr Johnson highly commends, saying
"They are written with the most exquisite delicacy of praise;
they exhibit one of those happy strokes that are seldom attained."-Here is this bepraised couplet:"When panting virtue her last efforts made,
You brought your Clio to the virgin's aid."
Clio, of course, refers to Addison's signatures in the " Spectator," consisting of the four letters composing the name
of the Muse of History, used in alternation. We cannot
coincide in Johnson's encomium. The allusion is, we think,
at once indecent and obscure; and what, after all, does it say,
but that Addison's papers aided the struggling cause of virtue?
In the same verses we find a fulsome and ridiculous preference of Addison to Shakspeare!
"In heaven he sings, on earth your Muse supplies
The important loss, and heals our weeping eyes;
Correctly great, she melts each flinty heart,
With EQUAL GENIUS, but SUPERIOR ART."
Surely the force of falsehood and flattery can go no further.
It is a pleasure to turn from these small and shallow things
to the "Chase," which, if not a great poem, is founded on a
most poetical subject, and which, here and there, sparkles into
fine fancy. Dr Johnson truly remarks, that Somerville " set a
good example to men of his own class, by devoting a part of
his time to elegant knowledge, and has shewn, by the subjects
which his poetry has adorned, that it is practicable to be at
once a skilful sportsman and a man of letters." But besides
this purpose to be the poet-and hitherto he has been almost
the sole poet of the squirearchy, as considered apart from the
aristocracy-Somerville has the merit of being inspired by a
genuine love for the subject. He writes directly from the
testimony of his own eyes, and the impulses of his own heart.
He has obviously had the mould of his poem suggested by
Thomson's " Seasons," but it is the mould only; the thoughts
and feelings which are poured into it are his own. He loves