atisfied with the few
spirited lines which the Abbe de Lille has introduced into his L'Homme
des Champs, on this subject. Vida's poem is a surprising instance of
difficulty overcome, in the manner with which he has moulded the
phraseology of the classics to a purpose apparently alien from it; and
he has made his mythology agreeable, trivial as it is, by the skill with
which it is managed. But I find that both the Caissa, and the Arcadia,
which is taken from a paper in the Guardian, were done, as the author
says, at the age of 16 or 17 years, and were saved from the fire in
preference to a great many others, because they seemed more correctly
versified than the rest. It is, therefore, hardly fair to judge them
very strictly.

His Latin commentary on Asiatic poetry is more valuable for the extracts
from the Persian and Arabic poets, which he has brought together in it,
than to be commended for anything else that it contains, or for the
style in which it is written. Certain marks of hurry in the composition,
which his old schoolfellow, Doctor Parr, had intimated to him with the
ingenuousness of a friend and a scholar, are still apparent. He takes up
implicitly with that incomplete and partial, though very ingenious
system, which Burke had lately put forth in his essay on the Sublime and
Beautiful. He has supported that writer's definition of Beauty by a
quotation from Hermogenes. A better confirmation of his theory might
have been adduced from the Philebus of Plato, in which Socrates makes
the same distinction as our eloquent countryman has taken so much pains
to establish between that sensation which accompanies the removal of
pain or danger, and which he calls delight--and positive pleasure.[2] As
the work, however, of a young man, the commentary was such as justly to
raise high expectations of the writer.

His style in English prose, where he had most improved it, that is, in
his discourses delivered in India on Asiatic History and Literature, is
opulent without being superfluous; dignified, yet not pompous or
inflated. He appears intent only on conveying to others the result of
his own inquiries and reflections on the most important topics, in as
perspicuous a manner as possible; and the embellishments of diction come
to him unbidden and unsought. His prolixity does not weary, nor his
learning embarrass, the reader. If he had been more elaborate, he might
have induced a suspicion of artifice; if he had been less so, t