done better than others what no man has done well. His poems on
other subjects seldom rise higher than might be expected from the
amusements of a man of letters, and have different degrees of value
as they are more or less laboured, or as the occasion was more or
less favourable to invention. He writes too often without regular
measures, and too often in blank verse; the rhymes are not always
sufficiently correspondent. He is particularly unhappy in coining
names expressive of characters. His lines are commonly smooth and
easy, and his thoughts always religiously pure; but who is there
that, to so much piety and innocence, does not wish for a greater
measure of sprightliness and vigour? He is at least one of the few
poets with whom youth and ignorance may be safely pleased; and happy
will be that reader whose mind is disposed, by his verses or his
prose, to imitate him in all but his non-conformity, to copy his
benevolence to man, and his
reverence to God.



A. PHILIPS.



Of the birth or early part of the life of Ambrose Philips I have not
been able to find any account. His academical education he received
at St. John's College in Cambridge, where he first solicited the
notice of the world by some English verses, in the collection
published by the University on the death of Queen Mary. From this
time how he was employed, or in what station he passed his life, is
not yet discovered. He must have published his "Pastorals" before