d has few sentiments drawn from nature, and
few images from modern life. He produces nothing but frigid pedantry. It
would be hard to find in all his productions three stanzas that deserve
to be remembered.

Like other lovers, he threatens the lady with dying; and what then shall
follow?

Wilt thou in tears thy lover's corse attend;
With eyes averted light the solemn pyre,
Till all around the doleful flames ascend,
Then, slowly sinking, by degrees expire?

To sooth the hov'ring soul be thine the care,
With plaintive cries to lead the mournful band;
In sable weeds the golden vase to bear,
And cull my ashes with thy trembling hand:

Panchaia's odours be their costly feast,
And all the pride of Asia's fragrant year,
Give them the treasures of the farthest East,
And, what is still more precious, give thy tear.

Surely no blame can fall upon the nymph who rejected a swain of so
little meaning.

His verses are not rugged, but they have no sweetness; they never glide
in a stream of melody. Why Hammond or other writers have thought the
quatrain of ten syllables elegiack, it is difficult to tell. The
character of the elegy is gentleness and tenuity; but this stanza has
been pronounced by Dryden, whose knowledge of English metre was not
inconsiderable, to be the most magnificent of all the measures which our
language affords.

-----

[Footnote 43: This account is still erroneous. James Hammond, our
author, was of a different family, the second son of Anthony Hammond, of
Somersham-place, in the county of Huntingdon, esq. See Gent. Mag. vol.
lvii. p. 780. R.]

[Footnote 44: Mr. Cole gives him to Cambridge. MSS. Athenae Cantab, in
Mus. Brit.]

SOMERVILE.

Of Mr.[45] Somervile's life I am not able to say any thing that can
satisfy curiosity.

He was a gentleman whose estate was in Warwickshire: his house, where he
was born, in 1692, is called Edston, a seat inherited from a long line
of ancestors; for he was said to be of the first family in his county.
He tells of himself that he was born near the Avon's banks. He was bred
at Winchester-school, and was elected fellow of New college. It does not
appear that in the places of his education he exhibited any uncommon
proofs of genius or literature. His powers were first displayed in the
country, where he was distinguished as a poet, a gentleman, and a
skilful and useful justice of the peace.

Of the