es there were some points in which he and
the Swedish monarch did not exactly resemble each other. He thinks,
for instance, that the King of Sweden had a somewhat more fervid and
original genius than himself, and was likewise a little more robust in
his person--but, subjoins Stockdale,

"Of our reciprocal fortune, achievements, and conduct, some parts will
be to _his_ advantage, and some to _mine_."

Yet in regard to _Fame_, the main object between him and Charles XII.,
Stockdale imagined that his own

"Will not probably take its fixed and immoveable station, and shine
with its expanded and permanent splendour, till it consecrates his
ashes, till it illumines his tomb!"

POPE hesitated at deciding on the durability of his poetry. PRIOR
congratulates himself that he had not devoted all his days to rhymes.
STOCKDALE imagines his fame is to commence at the very point (the
tomb) where genius trembles its own may nearly terminate!

To close this article, I could wish to regale the poetical Stockdales
with a delectable morsel of fraternal biography; such would be the
life, and its memorable close, of ELKANAH SETTLE, who imagined himself
to be a great poet, when he was placed on a level with Dryden by the
town-wits, (gentle spirits!) to vex genius.

Settle's play of _The Empress of Morocco_ was the very first "adorned
with sculptures."[140] However, in due time, the Whigs despising his
rhymes, Settle tried his prose for the Tories; but he was a magician
whose enchantments never charmed. He at length obtained the office of
the city poet, when lord mayors were proud enough to have laureates in
their annual pageants.

When Elkanah Settle published any _party poem_, he sent copies round
to the chiefs of the party, accompanied with addresses, to extort
pecuniary presents. He had latterly one standard _Elegy_ and
_Epithalamium_ printed off with blanks, which, by the ingenious
contrivance of filling up with the names of any considerable person
who died or was married, no one who was going out of life or entering
it _could pass scot-free_ from the _tax levied by his hacknied muse_.
The following letter accompanied his presentation copy to the Duke of
Somerset, of a poem, in Latin and English, on the Hanover succession,
when Elkanah wrote for the Whigs, as he had for the Tories:--

"SIR,--Nothing but the greatness of the subject could encourage my
presumption in laying the enclosed Essay at your Grace's feet,
being, wit