fifteen hundred a year, which by his death has devolved to Lord
Somervile of Scotland. His mother. indeed, who lived till ninety,
had a jointure of six hundred.

It is with regret that I find myself not better enabled to exhibit
memorials of a writer who at least must be allowed to have set a
good example to men of his own class, by devoting part of his time
to elegant knowledge; and who has shown, by the subjects which his
poetry has adorned, that it is practicable to be at once a skilful
sportsman and a man of letters.

Somervile has tried many modes of poetry; and though perhaps he has
not in any reached such excellence as to raise much envy, it may
commonly be said at least, that "he writes very well for a
gentleman." His serious pieces are sometimes elevated; and his
trifles are sometimes elegant. In his verses to Addison, the
couplet which mentions Clio is written with the most exquisite
delicacy of praise; it exhibits one of those happy strokes that are
seldom attained. In his Odes to Marlborough there are beautiful
lines; but in the second Ode he shows that he knew little of his
hero, when he talks of his private virtues. His subjects are
commonly such as require no great depth of thought or energy of
expression. His Fables are generally stale, and therefore excite no
curiosity. Of his favourite, "The Two Springs," the fiction is
unnatural, and the moral inconsequential. In his Tales there is too
much coarseness, with too little care of language, and not
sufficient rapidity of narration. His great work is his Chase,
which he undertook in his maturer age, when his ear was improved to
the approbation of blank verse, of which, however, his two first
lines give a bad specimen. To this poem praise cannot be totally