life was spent in appearing to contemn that applause which he no longer could secure. Dr. Pearce assures us in a sketch of his life, that "he was a firm friend to the established religion of his country, and free from the vices of the age even in his youth. He constantly attended public worship while his health permitted; and when age and infirmities prevented, he supplied that defect by daily reading over the service of the church in his bedchamber." That he had quick and lively parts his occasional productions sufficiently testify. 5 To collect the entire titles of these fugitives would be, in some respects, a difficult, and in others, an ungracious employ, as their fittest repository is oblivion. His earliest production was a copy of Latin verses printed in the Oxford Collection on the death of king William, and inauguration of queen Anne, 1702. In "Here then, O BATH! thy empire ends, Soon better days restore; For Enoch's fate and thine are one, Like him translated, thou art gone Ne'er to be heard of more." Sharpe's British Classics, ut sup. 5 Steele, in the dedication before noticed, speaks of his refined taste for letters; and of his affability, complacency, and generosity of heart, which wanted nothing from literature but to refine and direct the application of them. He has been accredited by some able judges to have had commanding talents; and Mrs. Carter has passed a high encomium on him in her Letters, and inscribed her Poems to him. the same year he addressed a copy of English verses to the queen. 6 "A proper Reply to a late scurrilous Libel," has been noticed by lord Orford, and likewise in the article of lord Hervey, p. 181.8 Several papers in the Craftsman, and in the Journals of Fog and Mist, are attributed to Lord Bath, also "An Epistle from Lord Lovel to Lord Chesterfield." "Advice to General Cope." "Elegy on Lady Abergavenny." The following is sufficiently characteristic of the writer's taste in poetry. 6 See Nichols's Miscell. Poems, vol. iii. p. 316. 7 This was written as an answer to sir C. H. Williams's Congratulatory Letter, &c. See Reminiscences of lord Orford, in his works, vol. iv. p. 316. 8 In a letter to Swift, dated Feb. 1730, Mr. Pulteney tells him that "villain, traitor, seditious rascal, and such ingenious appellations have been bestowed on a couple of friends of yours. Such usage has made it necessary to return the same polite language: and there has been more Billingsgate stuff uttered from the press, within these two months, than ever was known before." 9 We learn, from Dr. Newton, that the papers in the Craftsman marked C. were by the earl of Bath. Those marked C.A. were by him and Amherst jointly, or by Amherst from his dictation. Dr. Newton announced an edition of Paradise Lost, under the patronage of lord Bath, about 1745. "ON DOWAGER LADY E. H-D. "Vain are the charms of white and red, Give me the nymph whose snow is spread "Of smoother cheeks, the winning grace, But in the wrinkles of her face. "If naked eyes set hearts on blaze, "Nor happy rivals, nor the train Of num'rous years my bliss destroys; Alive, she gives no jealous pain, And then to please me - dies." 2 As a specimen of his lordship's pointed rhetoric, the following extract is taken from a speech in which he compared the minister to an empiric, and the constitution of England to his patient. "This pretender in physic being consulted, he tells the distempered person, there were but two or three ways of treating his disease, and he was afraid that • Annual Register for 1768. New Foundling Hospital for Wit, vol. i. p. 185. Ritson has printed it in his English Songs, with a smoother polish. none of them would succeed. A vomit might throw him into convulsions, that would occasion immediate death; a purge might bring on a diarrhoea, that would carry him off in a short time; and he had already been bled so much and so often, that he could bear it no longer. The unfortunate patient, shocked at this declaration, replies-Sir, you have always pretended to be a regular doctor, but I now find you are an arrant quack. I had an excellent constitution ⚫ when I first fell into your hands, but you have quite • destroyed it; and now I find I have no other chance of saving my life, but by calling for the help of some 6 regular practitioner.'"] 6 JOHN, SECOND EARL POULETT, THE second earl of that line, published [the Substance of] a Motion he made in the house of lords, and several papers on the militia, in 1758. [This nobleman was called up by writ to the house of peers, Jan. 17. 1734, by the title of lord Poulett, baron of Hinton St. George, and was appointed one of the lords of his majesty's bedchamber, which honour he resigned in 1755. On March 21. 1743, he was constituted lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county of Somerset. In May following he succeeded his father in honours and estate, as second earl Poulett. He was likewise colonel of the first battalion of Somersetshire militia, and recorder of Bridgewater. Dying a bachelor in Nov. 1764, the earldom, &c. devolved on his brother Vere 2, father to the late earl. His lordship's pamphletings are mentioned by lord Orford; but I have not been enabled to state their titles, or particularize their contents.] 2 Collins's and Debrett's Peerage, and Gentlemen's Mag. vol. xxxiv. p. 545. |