Boulter was not well qualified to write diurnal effays; but he knew how to practise the liberality of greatness and the fidelity of friendship. When he was advanced to the height of ecclefiaftical dignity; he did not forget the companion of his labours. Knowing Philips to be flenderly fupported, he took him to Ireland, as partaker of his fortune; and, making him his fecretary, added fuch preferments, as enabled him to represent the county of Armagh in the Irish Parliament. In December 1726 he was made fecretary to the Lord Chancellor; and in August 1733 became judge of the Prerogative Court. After the death of his patron he continued fome years in Ireland; but at last longing, as it seems, for his native country, he returned (1748) to London, having doubtless furvived moft of his friends and enemies, and among them his dreaded antagonist Pope. He found however the duke of Newcastle still living, and to him he dedicated his poems collected into a volume. Having purchased an annuity of four hundred pounds, he now certainly hoped to pass fome years of life in plenty and tranquillity; but his hope deceived him he was struck with a palfy, and died June 18, 1749, in his feventy-eighth year. Of his perfonal character all that I have heard is, that he was eminent for bravery and fkill in the sword, and that in conversation he was folemn and pompous. He had great fenfibility of cenfure, if judgement may be made by a single story which I heard long ago from Mr. Ing, a gentleman of great eminence in Staffordshire. '' Philips," faid he, "was once at table, when I asked him, How came thy king of Epirus to drive oxen, and to fay I'm goaded on by love? After which queftion he never spoke again.” Of the Diftreft Mother not much is pretended to be his own, and therefore it is no fubject of criticism: his other two tragedies, I believe, are not below mediocrity, nor above it. Among the Poems .comprised in the late collection, the Letter from Denmark may be justly praised; the Paftorals, which by the writer of the Guardian were ranked as one of the four genuine productions of the ruftick Muse, cannot furely be defpicable. That they exhibit a mode of life which does not exist, nor ever existed, is not to be objected; the fuppofition of fuch a state is allowed to Paftoral. In his other poems he cannot be denied the praise of lines fometimes elegant; but he has feldom much force, or much comprehenfion. The pieces that please best are those which, from Pope and Pope's adherents, procured him the name of Namby Pamby, the poems of short lines, by which he paid his court to all ages and characters, from Walpole the fteerer of the realm, to mifs Pulteney in the nursery: the numbers are smooth and spritely, and the diction is feldom faulty. They are not loaded with much thought, yet if they had been written by Addison they would have had admirers: little things are not valued but when they are done by those who can do greater. In his tranflations from Pindar he found the art of reaching all the obfcurity of the Theban bard, however he may fall below his fublimity; X 3 |