But though a libertine like Churchill, he seems not to have been the worse man of the two. Sir John Hawkins gives him the character of being good hearted, even to simplicity; and says, that he was esteemed at Twickenham for his kind offices, and for composing quarrels among his neighbours.

HUNTING SONG.

THE sun from the east tips the mountains with gold; The meadows all spangled with dew-drops behold! Hear! the lark's early matin proclaims the new day, And the horn's cheerful summons rebukes our delay.

CHORUS.

With the sports of the field there's no pleasure

can vie,

While jocund we follow the hounds in full cry.

Let the drudge of the town make riches his sport;
The slave of the state hunt the smiles of a court:
No care and ambition our pastime annoy,
But innocence still gives a zest to our joy.

With the sports, &c.

Mankind are all hunters in various degree;
The priest hunts a living-the lawyer a fee,
The doctor a patient-the courtier a place,
Though often, like us he's flung out in the chase.
With the sports, &c.

VOL. V.

X

The cit hunts a plumb-while the soldier hunts fame, The poet a dinner-the patriot a name;

And the practis'd coquette, though she seems to

refuse,

In spite of her airs, still her lover

pursues. With the sports, &c.

Let the bold and the busy hunt glory and wealth; All the blessing we ask is the blessing of health, With hound and with horn through the woodlands to roam,

And, when tired abroad, find contentment at home. With the sports, &c.

WALTER HARTE.

BORN (about) 1700.-DIED 1774.

THE father of this writer was a fellow of Pembroke college, Oxford, prebendary of Wells, and vicar of St. Mary's, at Taunton, in Somersetshire. When Judge Jefferies came to the assizes at Taunton, to execute vengeance on the sharers of Monmouth's rebellion, Mr. Harte waited upon him in private, and remonstrated against his severities. The judge listened to him attentively, though he had never seen him before. It was not in Jefferies's nature to practise humanity; but, in this solitary instance, he shewed a respect for its advocate; and in a few months, advanced the vicar to a prebendal stall in the cathedral of Bristol. At the revolution the aged clergyman resigned his preferments, rather than take the oath of allegiance to King William ; an action which raises our esteem of his intercession with Jefferies, while it adds to the unsalutary examples, of men supporting tyrants, who have had the virtue to hate their tyranny.

The accounts that are preserved of his son, the poet, are not very minute or interesting. The date of his birth has not even been settled. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine fixes it about 1707; but, by the date of his degrees at the university, this supposition is utterly inadmissible; and all circumstances considered, it is impossible to suppose that

he was born later than 1700. He was educated at Marlborough college, and took his degree of master of arts at Oxford, in 1720. He was introduced to Pope at an early period of his life; and, in return for the abundant adulation which he offered to that poet, was rewarded with his encouragement, and even his occasional assistance in versification. Yet, admirer as he was of Pope, his manner leans more to the imitation of Dryden. In 1727 he published, by subscription, a volume of poems, which he dedicated to the Earl of Peterborough, who, as the author acknowledges, was the first patron of his muse. In the preface it is boasted, that the poems had been chiefly written under the age of nineteen. As he must have been several years turned of twenty, when he made this boast, it exposes either his sense or veracity to some suspicion. He either concealed what improvements he had made in the poems, or shewed a bad judgment in not having improved them.

His next publications, in 1730 and 1735, were an "Essay on Satire," and another on "Reason," to both of which Pope is supposed to have contributed many lines. Two sermons, which he printed, were so popular as to run through five editions. He therefore rose, with some degree of clerical reputation, to be principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford; and was so much esteemed, that Lord Lyttleton recommended him to the Earl of Chesterfield, as the most proper tutor and travelling companion to his son. Harte had, indeed, every requisite for the preceptorship of Mr. Stanhope, that a Graevius or Gronovius could

have possessed; but none of those for which we should have supposed his father to have been most anxious. He was profoundly learned, but ignorant of the world, and awkward in his person and address. His pupil and he, however, after having travelled together for four years, parted with mutual regret; and Lord Chesterfield shewed his regard for Harte by procuring for him a canonry of Windsor.

During his connexion with Lord Peterborough, that nobleman had frequently recommended to him to write the life of Gustavus Adolphus. For this historical work he collected, during his travels, much authentic and original information. It employed him for many years, and was published in 1759; but either from a vicious taste, or from his having studied the idioms of foreign languages, till he had forgotten those of his own, he wrote his history in a style so obscure and uncouth, that its merits, as a work of research, were overlooked, and its reception from the public was cold and mortifying. Lord Chesterfield, in speaking of its being translated into German, piously wishes" that its author had translated it into "English; as it was full of Germanisms, Latinisms, "and all isms but Anglicisms." All the time, poor Harte thought he was writing a style less laboured and ornate than that of his cotemporaries; and when George Hawkins, the bookseller, objected to some of his most violent phrases, he used to say, "George, "that is what we call writing." This infatuation is the more surprising, that his Sermons, already mentioned, are marked by no such affectation of manner;