disappointed is that the thought of the LAST DAY makes every man
more than poetical by spreading over his mind a general obscurity of
sacred horror, that oppresses distinction and disdains expression.
His story of "Jane Grey" was never popular. It is written with
elegance enough, but Jane is too heroic to be pitied.

"The Universal Passion" is indeed a very great performance. It is
said to be a series of epigrams, but, if it be, it is what the
author intended; his endeavour was at the production of striking
distichs and pointed sentences, and his distichs have the weight of
solid sentiments, and his points the sharpness of resistless truth.
His characters are often selected with discernment and drawn with
nicety; his illustrations are often happy, and his reflections often
just. His species of satire is between those of Horace and Juvenal,
and he has the gaiety of Horace without his laxity of numbers, and
the morality of Juvenal with greater variation of images. He plays,
indeed, only on the surface of life; he never penetrates the
recesses of the mind, and therefore the whole power of his poetry is
exhausted by a single perusal; his conceits please only when they
surprise. To translate he never condescended, unless his
"Paraphrase on Job" may be considered as a version, in which he has
not, I think, been unsuccessful; he indeed favoured himself by
choosing those parts which most easily admit the ornaments of
English poetry. He had least success in his lyric attempts, in
which he seems to have been under some malignant influence; he is
always labouring to be great, and at last is only turgid.

In his "Night Thoughts" he has exhibited a very wide display of
original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking
allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy