Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/361

Rh To thee I owe the little art I boaſt; Thy heat firſt melted my co-genial froſt.
 * Preſerve the ſparks thy breath did fan,

And by thy likeneſs form me into true poetic man. Mr. Mitchel died in the year 1738. He ſeems to have been a poet of the third rate; he has ſeldom reached the ſublime; his humour, in which he more ſucceeded, is not ſtrong enough to laſt; his verſification holds a ſtate of mediocrity; he poſſeſſed but little invention, and if he was not a bad rhimeſter, he cannot be denominated a fine poet, for there are but few marks of genius in his writings. His poems were printed in two vol. 8vo. in the year 1729.

He wrote alſo, The Union of the Clans; or the Highland-Fair. A Scot’s Opera. ’Twas acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, about the year 1730; but did not ſucceed.

Mr.