e of Olympia." He is sometimes too paraphrastical. Pindar bestows
upon Hiero an epithet which, in one word, signifies DELIGHTING IN
HORSES; a word which, in the translation, generates these lines:--

"Hiero's royal brows, whose care
Tends the courser's noble breed,
Pleased to nurse the pregnant mare,
Pleased to train the youthful steed."

Pindar says of Pelops, that "he came alone in the dark to the White
Sea;" and West--

"Near the billow-beaten side
Of the foam-besilvered main,
Darkling, and alone, he stood:"

which, however, is less exuberant than the former passage.

A work of this kind must, in a minute examination, discover many
imperfections; but West's version, so far as I have considered it,
appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities.

His "Institution of the Garter" (1742) is written with sufficient
knowledge of the manners that prevailed in the age to which it is
referred, and with great elegance of diction; but, for want of a process
of events, neither knowledge nor elegance preserves the reader from
weariness.

His "Imitations of Spenser" are very successfully performed, both with
respect to the metre, the language, and the fiction; and being engaged
at once by the excellence of the sentiments, and the artifice of the
copy, the mind has two amusements together. But such compositions are
not to be reckoned among the great achievements of intellect, because
their effect is local and temporary; they appeal not to reason or
passion, but to memory, and presuppose an accidental or artificial state
of mind. An imitation of Spenser is nothing to a reader, however acute,
by whom Spenser has never been perused. Works of this kind may deserve
praise, as proofs of great industry and great nicety of observation; but
the highest praise, the praise of genius, they cannot claim. The noblest
beauties of art are those of which the effect is co-extended with
rational nature, or at least with the whole circle of polished life;
what is less than this can be only pretty, the plaything of fashion, and
the amusement of a day.

There is in the Adventurer a paper of verses given to one of the authors
as Mr. West's, and supposed to have been written by him. It should
not be concealed, however, that it is printed with Mr. Jago's name
in Dodsley's Collection, and is mentioned as his in a letter of
Shenstone's. Perhaps West gave it without naming the author, and