Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/216

206 both which the moſt exquiſite judges pronounced he even rivalled his maſters. His love verſes have reſcued that way of writing from contempt. In his tranſlations he has given us the very ſoul and ſpirit of his author. His Odes; his Epiſtles; his Verſes; his Love-Tales; all are the moſt perfect things in all poetry.’

If this repreſentation of our author’s abilities were juſt, it would ſeem no wonder, if the two univerſities ſhould ſtrive with each other for the honour of his education, but it is certain the world have not coincided with this opinion of Mr. Welſted; who, by the way, can hardly be thought the author of ſuch an extravagant ſelf-approbation, unleſs it be an irony, which does not ſeem improbable.

Our author, however, does not appear to have been a mean poet; he had certainly from nature an exceeding fine genius, but after he came to town he became a votary to pleaſure, and the applauſes of his friends, which taught him to overvalue his talents, perhaps ſlackened his diligence, and by making him truſt ſolely to nature, ſlight the aſſiſtance of art.

In the year 1718 he wrote the Triumvirate, or a Letter in Verſe from Palemon to Celia from Bath, which was meant as a ſatire againſt Mr. Pope. He wrote ſeveral other occaſional pieces againſt this gentleman, who, in recompence of his enmity, has mentioned him twice in his Dunciad. In book ii. l. 200, where he repreſents the poets flattering their patrons with the fulſome ſtrains of panegyric, in order to procure from them that which they very much wanted, viz. money, he ſhews Welſted as unſucceſsful. Mr.