only by his genius. Every name which kindness or interest once
raised too high is in danger, lest the next age should, by the
vengeance of criticism, sink it in the same proportion. A great
writer has lately styled him "an indifferent poet, and a worse
critic." His poetry is first to be considered; of which it must be
confessed that it has not often those felicities of diction which
give lustre to sentiments, or that vigour of sentiment that animates
diction: there is little of ardour, vehemence, or transport; there
is very rarely the awfulness of grandeur, and not very often the
splendour of elegance. He thinks justly, but he thinks faintly.
This is his general character; to which, doubtless, many single
passages will furnish exception. Yet, if he seldom reaches supreme
excellence, he rarely sinks into dulness, and is still more rarely
entangled in absurdity. He did not trust his powers enough to be
negligent. There is in most of his compositions a calmness and
equability, deliberate and cautious, sometimes with little that
delights, but seldom with anything that offends. Of this kind seem
to be his poems to Dryden, to Somers, and to the King. His ode on
St. Cecilia has been imitated by Pope, and has something in it of
Dryden's vigour. Of his Account of the English Poets he used to
speak as a "poor thing;" but it is not worse than his usual strain.
He has said, not very judiciously, in his character of Waller--

"Thy verse could show even Cromwell's innocence,
And compliment the storms that bore him hence.
Oh! had thy Muse not come an age too soon,
But seen great Nassau on the British throne,
How had his triumph glittered in thy page!"

What is this but to say that he who could compliment Cromwell had