He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of ftate, THESE lines, which are eminently beauti ful, particularly one of the three laft, containing a fine profopopœia, have conferred immortality on a plain, worthy, and useful citizen of Herefordshire, Mr. John Kyrle, who spent his long life in advancing and contriving plans of public utility. The HOWARD of his time: who deferves to be celebrated more than all the heroes of PINDAR. The particular reafon for which I quoted them, was to obferve the pleafing effect that the use of common and familiar words and objects, judiciously managed, produce in poetry. Such as are here the words, caufeway, feats, fpire, market-place, alms-house, apprentic'd. A faftidious delicacy, and a falfe refinement, in order to avoid meanness, have deterred our writers from the introduc * V. 253. VOL. I. Hh tion tion of fuch words; but DRYDEN often hazarded it, and it gave a fecret charm, and a natural air to his verses. 22. Sir Balaam now, he lives like other folks, He takes his chirping pint, and cracks his jokes: "Live like yourself," was foon my Lady's word; And lo! two puddings fmok'd upon the board *. THIS tale of Sir Balaam, his progrefs and change of manners, from being a plodding, fober, plain, and punctual citizen, to his becoming a debauched and diffolute courtier and fenator, abounds in much knowledge of life, and many ftrokes of true humour, and will bear to be compared with the exquifite hiftory of Corufodes, in one of SWIFT's Intelligencers. LORD BATHURST, Lord LYTTELTON, and Mr. SPENCE, and other of his friends, have assured me, that among intimates POPE had an admirable talent for telling a story, * V. 357. In great companies he avoided speaking much. And in his examination before the House of Lords, in ATTERBURY's trial, he faultered fo much as to be hardly intelligible. 23. You fhow us, Rome was glorious, not profufe, And pompous buildings once were things of use: Yet fhall (my Lord) your juft, your noble rules, Fill half the land with imitating-fools*. THUS Our author addreffes the EARL of BURLINGTON, who was then publishing the defigns of Inigo Jones, and the Antiquities of Rome by Palladio. "Never was protection and great wealth+" (fays an able judge of the fubject) "more generously and judiciously diffused, than by this great perfon, who had every quality of a genius and artist, except envy. Though his own defigns were more chaste and claffic than Kent's, he entertained him in his houfe 'till his death, and was more ftudious to extend Mr. Walpole, p. 108. Anecdotes of Painting, vol. iv. As we his friend's fame than his own. have few samples of architecture more antique and impofing than the colonnade within the court of his houfe in Piccadilly, I cannot help mentioning the effect it had on myself, I had not only never seen it, but had never heard of it, at least with any attention, when, foon after my return from Italy, I was invited to a ball at Burlington-house. As I paffed under the gate by night, it could not strike me. break, looking out of the window to fee the fun rife, I was furprized with the vision of the colonnade that fronted me. It seemed one of those edifices in Fairy Tales, that are raised by genii in a night's time.”—POPE having appeared an excellent moralift in the foregoing epiftles, in this appears to be as excellent a * connoiffeur, and has given not At day Though he always thought highly of Addifon's Letter from Italy, yet he thought the poet had spoken in terms too general of the finest buildings and paintings, and without much difcrimination of tafte. only only fome of our first, but our best rules and obfervations on architecture and gardening, but particularly on the latter of these useful and entertaining arts, on which he has dwelt more largely, and with rather more knowledge of the subject. The following is copied verbatim from a little paper which he gave to Mr. * SPENCE. "Arts are taken from 66 nature, and, after a thousand vain efforts "for improvements, are best when they re"turn to their firft fimplicity. A sketch "or analysis of the first principles of each "art, with their first confequences, might "be a thing of moft excellent service. Thus, "for inftance, all the rules of † architecture might be reducible to three or four heads; "the juftness of the openings; bearings "Who had both taste and zeal for the prefent flyle," fays Mr. Walpole, p. 134. + Our author was fo delighted with Grævius, that he drew up a little Latin treatise on the chief buildings of Rome, collected from this antiquarian. Mr. Gray had alfo an exquifite tafte in architecture, joined to the knowledge of an accurate antiquarian. See the introduction to Bentham's Hiftory of Ely Cathedral, fuppofed to be drawn up by Gray, or under his eye. |