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cond it is taken pofitively, as an agent. In oneof Boileau's lines it was a question, whether he fhould ufe à rien faire, or à ne rien faire; and the first was preferred, because it gave rien a fense in some fort pofitive. Nothing can be a fubject only in its pofitive sense, and such a sense is given it in the first line:

Nothing, thou elder brother ev'n to shade."

In this line, I know not whether he does not allude to a curious book de Umbra, by Wowerus, which, having told the qualities of Shade, con-cludes with a poem in which are thefe lines: Jam primum terram validis circumfpice clauftris Sufpenfam totam, decus admirabile mundi Terrafque tractufque maris, campofque liquentes Aeris & vafti laqueata palatia cœliOmnibus UMBRA prior..

The pofitive fenfe is generally preferved, with great fkill, through the whole poem; though fometimes, in a fubordinate fenfe, the negative nothing is injudiciously mingled. Paf-ferat confounds the two fenfes.

Another of his moft vigorous pieces is his Lampoon on Sir Car Scroop, who, in a poem called The Praife of Satire, had fome lines like these *:

* 1 quote from memory.
A 6

He

He who can push into a midnight fray
His brave companiont, and then run away,
Leaving him to be murder'd in the ftreet,
Then put it off with fome buffoon conceit;
Him, thus difhonour'a, for a wit you own,
And court him as top fidler of the town.

This was meant of Rochester, whose buffoon: conceit was, I fuppofe, a faying often mentioned, that every Man would be a Coward if be durft; and drew from him thofe furious verses, to which Scroop made in reply an epigram end-ing with these lines:

Thou canft hurt no man's fame with thy ill word; : Thy pen is full as harmless as thy fword.

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Of the fatire against Man, Rochester can only claim what remains when all Boileau's part is taken away..

In all his works there is fprightlinefs and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind which study might have carried to excellence. What more can be expected from a life spent in oftentatious contempt of regularity," and ended before the abilities of many others men began to be displayed?

† Colonel Downs.

THE

THE

PREF A CE.

THE HE celebrating the praifes of the dead is an. argument fo worn out by long and frequent. use, and now become fo naufeous by the flattery that ufually attends it, that it is no wonder if funeral orations, or panegyrics, are more confidered. for the elegance of ftyle and fineness of wit than for the authority they carry with them as to the truth. of matters of fact. And yet I am not hereby deterred from meddling with this kind of argument, nor from handling it with all the plainnefs. I can ; delivering only what I myself heard and faw, without any borrowed ornament. I do eafily forefcehow many will be engaged, for the fupport of their impious maxims and immoral practices, to difparage what I am to write. Others will cenfure it because it comes from one of my profeffion; toa many fuppofing us to be induced to frame fuch difcourfes for carrying on what they are pleased to call our trade. Some will think I drefs it up too artificially; and others, that I prefent it too plain and naked.

But,

But, being refolved to govern myself by the exac rules of truth, I fhall be lefs concerned in the cenfures I may fall under. It may feem liable to great exception that I fhould difclofe fo many things, that were difcovered to me, if not under the feal of confeffion, yet under the confidence of friendship. But this noble lord himself not only released me from all obligation of this kind, when I waited on him in his laft fickness a few days before he died, but gave it me in charge not to spare him in any thing which I thought might be of ufe to the living, and was not ill pleafed to be laid open, as well in the worst as in the best and laft part of his life, being fo fincere in his repentance, that he was not unwilling to take fhame to himself, by fuffering his faults to be expofed for the benefit of others.

I write with one great difadvantage, that I cannot reach his chief defign without mentioning fome of his faults; but I have touched them as tenderly as occafion would bear, and, I am fure, with muchmore foftness than he defired, or would have confented unto, had I told him how I intended to manage this part. I have related nothing with perfonal reflections on any others concerned with him; wifhing rather that they themfelves, reflecting on the fenfe he had. of his former diforders, may be

thereby

thereby led to forfake their own, than that they fhould be any ways reproached by what I write: and therefore, though he ufed very few referves with me as to his courfe of life, yet, fince others had a share in moft parts of it, I fhall relate nothing but what more immediately concerned himfelf, and I fhall fay no more of his faults than is neceffary to illuftrate his repentance,

The occafion, that led me into fo particular a knowledge of him, was an intimation, given me by a gentleman of his acquaintance, of his defire to fee me. This was fome time in October, 1679, when he was flowly recovering out of a great difeafe. He had understood that I often attended on one, well known to him, that died the fummer before: he was also then entertaining himself, in that ftate of his health, with the first part of the Hiftory of the Reformation, then newly come out, with which he feemed not ill pleafed; and we had accidentally met in two or three places fome time before. Thefe were the motives that led him to call for my company. After I had waited on him once or twice, he grew into that freedom with me, as to open to me all his thoughts, boths f religion and morality; and to give me a full view of his paft life; and feemed not uneafy at my frequent visits.

So,

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