Page:Tixall Poetry.djvu/441

 the Bermudas; but it seems much more likely, that he should amuse himself with forming an imaginary scene, than that so important an incident, as a visit to America, should have been left floating in conjectural probability."

P. 220. Ephelia is a poetical name, which I have not met with elsewhere. There is in this poem both nature, and real passion, forcibly expressed.

In the "Answer to Ephelia," the lines on the Sultan, deserve to be pointed out, particularly this couplet:

Thy crouching slaves, all silent as the night, But at thy nod, all active as the light.

P. 226. The reader will recollect that Gertrude Aston was Mrs Henry Thimelby.

P. 227. Henry Somerset, Esq. of Pentley Court, in Gloucestershire, was eldest son of Lord John Somerset, second son of the first, and renowned Marquis of Worcester: author of "Certamen Religiosum," and "The Golden Apothegms." Henry Somerset married Anne, daughter of Walter, second Lord Aston; and by her had a daughter, who was a nun; and one son, Edward Maria; who married two wives, Clare, and Anne, sisters, and daughters of Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore, but died without issue in 1711.

I think it probable, that these two poems were written by Herbert Aston, uncle to Mrs Henry Somerset. The second poem is very obscure. Of the names, Marcelin, Parthenia, and Arcasia, I can make nothing.

P. 234. This ode, on Cowley's retirement, was written by Mrs Catherine Philips. It is much superior, in every respect, to a poem, which Cowley wrote on her death.

P. 240. There is something grand, and awful, in this picture of human life, compared with the tempestuous ocean, which imposes on the imagination. The diction, and versification, are not inferior to the images, and sentiments. The