Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/213

Rh antagoniſts had done. In his proſe Eſſay on Criticiſm, and in the Arts of Logic and Rhetoric, he frequently reflects on Pope, for which he has received a place in his Dunciad.

When that eminent ſatyriſt in his ſecond Book, line 270, repreſents the Dunces diving for the Prize of Dulneſs, he in a particular manner dignifies Oldmixon, for he makes him climb a lighter, that by leaping from it, he may ſink the deeper in the mud.

Mr. Oldmixon wrote a hiſtory of the Stuarts in folio, and a Critical Hiſtory of England, in two volumes octavo. The former of theſe pieces was undertaken to blacken the family of the Stuarts. The moſt impartial writers and candid critics, on both ſides, have held this work in contempt, for in every page there breathes a malevolent ſpirit, a diſpoſition to rail and calumniate: So far from obſerving that neutrality and diſpaſſionate evenneſs of temper, which ſhould be carefully attended to by every hiſtorian, he ſuffers himſelf to be tranſported with anger: He reviles, wreſts particular paſſages, and frequently draws forced concluſions. A hiſtory written in this ſpirit has no great claim to a reader’s faith. The reigns of the Stuarts in England were no doubt chequer’d with many evils; and yet it is certainly true, that a man who