He had even attained so much character both as a poet and a philosopher, that the Essay on Man was at first attributed to him. It may not be impertinent to introduce here an anecdote, related by Dr. Warton, who was very intimate with Harte. Pope told Mr. Harte, that in order to disguise his being the author of the Second Epistle of the Essay on Man, he made, in the first edition, the following bad rhyme :

A cheat! a whore! that starts not at the name,

In all the inns of court, or Drury-Lane.

"And Harte remembered to have often heard it urged, in inquiries about the author, whilst he was unknown, that it was impossible it could be Pope's, on account of this very passage."- Warton, it may be added, always spoke with respect of Harte's abilities.

From every evidence, he appears to have been a man of extensive learning, and acquainted not only with the best authors of his time, but with the classics, the fathers of the church, and other eminent writers of antiquity, which Dr. Maty, rather inconsiderately, calls "Gothic erudition." It is true that he often discovers that kind of reading which is seldom read, but the illustrations he has appended to the poems in the Amaranth from the fathers, &c. are generally apt and judicious. Towards the close of life, he cheered his painful and solitary hours by devotional reading.

Ile died unmarried, and at one time seems to have considered the married state as unfavourable to the exertions of genius. In his Essay on Painting, he very ungallantly recommends that the artist should be

"Untouch'd by cares, uncumber'd with a wife."

Notwithstanding the unfortunate reception of his history, he projected ano. ther undertaking of the same kind. This we learn from the concluding passage of his Gustavus: in which he says his intention was to carry the history of Germany down to the peace of Munster, but that he was deterred by the magnitude of the undertaking. He adds, however, in a note, that he had completed the history of the thirty years war, from the breaking out of the troubles in Bohemia in 1618 to the death of Gustavus in 1632. These papers, with whatever else he left, are supposed to have fallen into the hands of his servant Edward Dore, who after. wards kept an inn in Bath. Dore and his family are no more, and the manuscripts are probably irrecoverably lost. We have his own authority also, that he intended to have written a criticism on the poetry of Dryden, which he seems to have appreciated with just taste. The Advertisement to Religious Melancholy, from which this information is taken, is inserted almost entire, by Dr. Warton in his edition of Pope, as the result of a conference between Pope and Harte.

Harte's poems in general are entitled to considerable praise, although it may probably be thought that he was a better critic than a poet, and exhibited more taste than genius. His attachment to Pope led him to an imitation of that writer's manner, particularly in the Essay on Reason and that on Satire, which are now added to his other works. His Essay on Reason has been somewhere called a fine philosophical poem. It might with more propriety be called a fine Christian poem, as it has more of religion than philosophy, and might have been aptly enti tled An Essay on Revelation. The Essay on Satire has some elegant passages, but is desultory, and appears to have been written as a compliment to the Dun

ciad of Pope, whose opinions he followed as far as they respected the merits of the dunces whom Pope labelled.

For his Essay on Painting, he pleads that it was written at intervals, upon such remarks as casually occurred in his reading, and is therefore deficient in connection. He adds that he had finished the whole before he saw Du Fresnoy, which may readily be believed. He discovers, however, a very correct notion of an art which was not at that time much studied in this country, and has laid down many precepts which, if insufficient to form a good painter, will at least prevent his falling into gross improprieties. So much knowledge of the art, and acquaintance with the works of the most eminent painters, argues a taste surprising at his early age. He had some turn for drawing, and made several sketches when abroad, which were afterwards engraved as head pieces for the poems in the Amaranth. In this Essay, he delights in images, which although in general pleasing and just, are perhaps too frequently, and as it were periodically introduced. With all his admiration of Pope, he was not less attached to Dryden as a model, and if he has less harmony than Pope, has at the same time less monotony.

His translations are faithful and not inelegant. His acquaintance with the classics was very intimate, and he has decorated his Essays on Husbandry with a profusion of apt illustrations.

The Soliloquy occasioned by the chirping of a Grasshopper is tender and playful, but his other small pieces are not entitled to particular notice.

The Amaranth was written, as he informs us" for his private consolation under a lingering and dangerous state of health." There is something so amiable, and we may add so heroic in this, that it is impossible not to make every allowance for defects; but this collection of poems does not upon the whole stand so much in need of indulgence as may be expected. Some of them were sketched when he was abroad, and now were revised and prepared, but others may perhaps be the effusions of a man in sickness and pain. Yet there are more animated passages of genuine poetry scattered over this volume than we find in his former works. The whole of the Amaranth is of the serious cast, such as became the situa tion of the author. We have, indeed, heard of authors who have sported with unusual glee in their moments of debility and decay, and seemed resolved to meet death with an air of good humour and levity. Such a state of mind, where it does really occur, and is not affectation, is rather to be wondered at, than envied. It is not the feeling of a rational, and an immortal creature.

In these poems he adopts various measures, according to his subject. The transition from the ode to the heroic, in the Ascetic, he justifies by the example of Cowley, and from the nature of the precepts, which are most suitable to the solemnity of heroic verse. The Ode to Contentment has many splendid passages and the recurrence of "All, all from Thee, &c." is particularly graceful. The exclamation of "Bless me," is, however, a puerility unworthy of the general strain of this poem.

In the Vision of Death, he professes to imitate Dryden by the introduction of more triplets and alexandrines than "he might otherwise have done." But if by this he avoids the perpetual restraint of the couplet, there is too much of visible artifice in the method he takes to relieve himself. This, however, is one of the most

ingenious fables of which immortality is the subject; the figure and habitation of Death, are poetically conceived and expressed, and the address of Death is energe tic and striking.

The Courtier and Prince is one of the most instructive and interesting fables in our language. Its length will perhaps be objected, but not by those who at tend to the many scattered beauties of sentiment and imagination, and whatever opinion may be entertained on the merit of this and his other poems, it ought not to be forgot that in all be prefers no higher claims than

The sounds of verse, and voice of Truth.

Blest with a genius strong, but unconfin'd,
A spritely wit, with sober judgment join'd,
A love of learning, and a patient mind;
A vig'rous fancy, such as youth requires,
And health, and ease, and undisturb'd desires.
Who spares no pains his own defects to know,
Who not forgives, but ev'n admires a foe;
By manners sway'd, which stealing on the heart,
Charm more through ease, and happiness, than

art.

Such Titian was, by nature form'd to please,
Blest in his fortunes, born to live at ease:
Who felt the poet's, or the painter's fire,
Now dipp'd the pencil, and now tun'd the lyre:
Of gentlest manners in a court refin'd,
A friend to all, belor'd of all mankind;
The Muse's glory, as a monarch's care, 2
Dear to the gay, the witty, and the fair!

But ah! how long will nature ask to give
A soul like his, and bid a wonder live?
Rarely a Titian, or a Fope appears,
The forming glory of a thousand years!

A proper taste we all derive from Heav'n,
Wou'd all but bless, and manage what is giv'n.
Some secret impulse moves in ev'ry heart,
And nature's pleas'd with gentle strokes of art;
Most souls, 'tis true, this blessing faintly charms;
A distant flame, that rather shines, than warms:
Like rays, through wintry streams reflected,
falls

Its dubious light, in glimm'ring intervals.

Like Maro first with trembling hand design
Some humble work, and study line by line:
A Roman urn, a grove encircled bow'r,
The blushing cherry, or the bending flow'r.
Painful, and slow to noble arts we rise,
And long long labours wait the glorious prize;
Yet by degrees your steadier hand shall give
A bolder grace, and bid each object live.
So in the depths of some sequester'd vale,
The weary peasant's heart begins to fail:
Slowly he mounts the huge high cliff with pain,
And prays in thought he might return again:
'Till opening all at once beneath his eyes,
The verdant trees, and glittering turrets rise:
He springs, he triumphs, and like light'ning flies.
Ev'n Raphael's self from rude essays began,
And shadow'd with a coal bis shapeless man.
Tine was, when Pope for rhymes would knit his
brow,

And write as tasteless lines-as I do now.

'Tis hard a sprightly fancy to command,
And give a respite to the lab'ring hand;
Hard as our eager passions to restrain,
When priests, and self-denial plead in vain:
When pleasures tempt, and inclinations draw,
When vice is nature, and our will the law.
As vain we strive each trivial fault to hide,
That shows but little judgment, and more pride.
Like some nice prude, offensive to the sight,
Exactness gives at best a cold delight;

3

1 Sit vir talis, qualis verè sapiens appellari possit, nec moribus modo perfectus, sed etiam scientià, & omni facultate dicendi, qualis fortasse adhuc nemo fuerit. Quintilian.

2 Titian was created count Palatine by Charles V. and most intimately acquainted with Ariosto, Aretine, &c.

* Odiosa cura est-Optima enim sunt minimè

Each painful stroke disgusts the lively mind;
For art is lost, when overmuch refin'd.
So nice reformers their own faith betray,
And school-divines distinguish sense away.
To err is mortal, do whate'er we can,
Some faulty trifles will confess the man.
Dim spots suffuse the lamp that gilds the sky,
If nicely trac'd through Galileo's eye.
Wisest are they, who each mad whim repress,
And shur gross errours, by committing less.

Still let due decencies preserve your fame,
Nor must the pencil speak the master's shame.
Each nobler soul in ev'ry age was giv'n
To bless mankind, for arts descend from Heav'.
Gods! shall we then their pious use profane,
'T" oblige the young, the noble, or the vain!
Whoever meditates some great design,
Where strength and nature dawn at ev'ry line,
Where art and fancy full perfection give,
And each bold figure glows, and seems to live:
Where lights and shades in sweet disunion play,
Rise by degrees, or by degrees decay;
Far let him shun the busy noise of life,
Untouch'd by cares, uncumber'd with a wife.
Bear him, ye Muses! to sequester'd woods,
To bow'ry grottoes, and to silver floods! [reign,
Where Peace, and Friendship hold their gentle
And Love unarm'd sits smiling on the plain.
Where Nature's beauties variously unite,
And in a landscape open on the sight.
Where Contemplation lifts her silent eye,
And lost in vision travels o'er the sky.
Soft as his ease the whisp'ring Zephyrs blow,
Calm as his thoughts the gentle waters flow:
Hush'd are his cares, extinct are Cupid's fires,
And restless hopes, and impotent desires.

But Nature first must be your darling care;
Unerring Nature, without labour fair.
Art from this source derives her true designs,
And sober judgment cautiously refines.
No look, no posture must mishap'd appear:
| Bold be the work, but boldly regular.
When mercy pleads, let softness melt the eyes;
When anger storins, the swelling muscles rise.
A soft emotion breathes in simple love,
The heart just seems to beat, the eye to move.
Gently, ah! gently, Languor seems to die,
Now drops a tear, and now steals out a sigh.
Let awful Jove his lifted thunders wield;
Place azure Neptune in the watry field.
Round smiling Venus draw the faithless boy,
Surmise, vain hopes, and short-enduring joy.
But should you dress a nymph in monstrous ruff,
Or saintly nun profane with modish snuff:
Each fool will cry, O horridly amiss!
The painters mad, mend that, and alter this.
From Heav'n descending, beauteous Nature