Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 1.djvu/23

 I cannot better diſplay the character of this great man than in the following words of Urry. "As to his temper, ſays he, he had a mixture of the gay, the modeſt and the grave. His reading was deep and extenſive, his judgment found and diſcerning; he was communicative of his knowledge, and ready to correal or paſs over the faults of hiſ cotemporary writers. He knew how to judge of and excuſe the flips of weaker capacities, and pitied rather than expoſed the ignorance of that age. In one word, he was a great ſcholar, a pleaſant wit, a candid critic, a ſociable companion, a ſtedfaſt friend, a great philoſopher, a temperate oeconomift, and a pious chriſtian." As to his genius as a poet, Dryden (than whom a higher authority cannot be produced) ſpeaking of Homer and Virgil, poſitively arts, that our author exceeded the latter, and Hands in competition with the former.

His language, how unintelligible ſoever it may ſeem, is almoſt as modern as any of his crotemporaries, or of thoſe who followed him at the diſtance of 50 or 60 years, as Harding, Skelton and others, and in ſome places it is ſo ſmooth and beautiful, that Dryden would not attempt to alter it; I ſhall now give ſome account of his works in the order in which they were written, ſo far as can be collected from them, and ſubjoin a ſpecimen of his poetry, of which profeſſionſs he may juſtly be called the Morning Star, ſo as we deſcend into later times, we may ſee the progreſs of poetry in England from its great original, Chaucer, to its full blaze, and perfect conſummation in Dryden.

Mr. Philips ſuppoſes a greater part of his works to be loſt, than what we have extant of him; of that number may be many a ſong, and many a lecherous lay, which perhaps might have been written by him while he was a ſtudent at Cambridge. The