And not thy muse pursue,
Or wish, at least, such miracles to do?

Sure in thy breast the ancient Hebrew fire
Reviv'd, glows hot, and blazes forth,
How strong, how fierce the flames aspire!
Of thy interior worth,
When burning worlds thou sett'st before our eyes[B],
And draw'st tremendous judgment from the flues!
O bear me on thy seraph wing,
And teach my weak obsequious muse to sing.
To thee I owe the little art I boast;
Thy heat first melted my co-genial frost.
Preserve the sparks thy breath did fan,
And by thy likeness form me into true poetic man.

Mr. Mitchel died in the year 1738. He seems to have been a poet of the
third rate; he has seldom reached the sublime; his humour, in which he
more succeeded, is not strong enough to last; his verification holds a
state of mediocrity; he possessed but little invention, and if he was
not a bad rhimester, he cannot be denominated a fine poet, for there
are but few marks of genius in his writings. His poems were printed in
two vol. 8vo. in the year 1729.

He wrote also, The Union of the Clans; or the Highland-Fair. A Scot's
Opera. 'Twas acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, about the year
1730; but did not succeed.

[Footnote A: An epic poem by Aaron Hill, esq;]

[Footnote B: See The Judgment, a poem by Aaron Hill, esq;]

* * * * *

Mr. John Ozell,

This gentleman added considerably to the republic of letters by his
numerous translations. He received the rudiments of his education from
Mr. Shaw, an excellent grammarian, master of the free school at Ashby
De la Zouch in Leicestershire: he finished his grammatical learning
under the revd. Mr. Mountford of Christ's Hospital, where having
attained the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, he was designed to be
sent to the university of Cambridge, to be trained up for holy Orders.
But Mr. Ozell, who was averse to that confinement which he must expect
in a college life, chose to be sooner settled in the world, and be
placed in a public office of accounts, having previously qualified
himself by attaining a knowledge of arithmetic, and writing the
necessary hands. This choice of an occupation in our author, could no
other reasons be adduced, are sufficient to denominate him a little
tinctured with dulness, for no man of genius ever yet made choice of
spending his life behind a desk in a compting-house.

He still retained, however, an inclination