Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/316

306 ; the lives, actions, and characters of celebrated men, with amazing facility and accuracy. As he had carefully read and diſtinguiſhed Thuanus’s works, ſo he was able to copy after him: And his talent in this kind was ſo generally confeſs’d, that he was made choice of by ſome great men, to write a hiſtory, which it was their intereſt to have executed with the utmoſt art, and dexterity; but this deſign was dropped, as Mr. Smith would not ſacrifice truth to the caprice, and intereſted views of a party.

Our author’s Poem, condoling the death of Mr. Philips, is full of the nobleſt beauties, and pays a juſt tribute to the venerable aſhes of that great man. Mr. Smith had contracted for Mr. Philips the moſt perfect friendſhip, a paſſion of which he was very ſuſceptible, and whoſe laws he conſidered as ſacred and inviolable.

In the year 1707 Mr. Smith’s Tragedy called Phædra and Hippolitus was acted at the Theatre-Royal. This play was introduced upon the ſtage, at a time when the Italian Opera ſo much engroſſed the attention of the polite world, that ſenſe was ſacrificed to ſound. It was dreſs’d and decorated, at an extraordinary expence:and inimitably perform’d, in all its parts, by Betterton, Booth, Barry, and Oldfield. Yet it brought but few, and ſlender audiences.To ſay truth, ’twas a fine Poem; but not an extraordinary Play. Notwithſtanding the intrinſic merit of this piece, and the countenance it met with from the moſt ingenious men of the age, yet it languiſhed on the ſtage, and was ſoon neglected. Mr. Addiſon wrote the Prologue, in which he rallies the vitiated taſte of the public, in preferring the unideal entertainment of an Opera, to the genuine ſenſe of a Britiſh Poet. The