Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/133

Rh poetical measures is immense, and to each species he imports its peculiar grace and harmony. The style of his prose exhibits correspondent beauties; nor is it chequered by phraseologies, unsuitable in that mode of composition. His diction, whether in prose or verse, is not a tissue of centos; he imitates the ancients as the ancients imitated each other. No Latin poet of modern times has united the same originality and elegance; no historian has so completely imbibed the genius of antiquity, without being betrayed into servile and pedantic imitation. But his works may legitimately claim a higher order of merit, they have added no inconsiderable influx to the general stream of human knowledge. The wit, the pungency, the vehemence of his ecclesiastical satires, must have tended to