ce of one Act, 1730.

17. Celia; or, the Perjured Lovers; a Tragedy, 1732.

* * * * *

PHILIP FROWDE, Esq;

This elegant poet was the son of a gentleman who had been
post-master-general in the reign of queen Anne. Where our author
received his earliest instructions in literature we cannot ascertain;
but, at a proper time of life, he was sent to the university of Oxford,
where he had the honour of being particularly distinguished by Mr.
Addison, who took him under his immediate protection. While he remained
at that university, he became author of several poetical performances;
some of which, in Latin, were sufficiently elegant and pure, to intitle
them to a place in the Musae Anglicanae, published by Mr. Addison; an
honour so much the more distinguished, as the purity of the Latin poems
contained in that collection, furnished the first hint to Boileau of the
greatness of the British genius. That celebrated critick of France
entertained a mean opinion of the English poets, till he occasionally
read the Musae Anglicanae; and then he was persuaded that they who could
write with so much elegance in a dead language, must greatly excel in
that which was native to them.

Mr. Frowde has likewise obliged the publick with two tragedies; the Fall
of Saguntum, dedicated to sir Robert Walpole; and Philotas, addressed to
the earl of Chesterfield. The first of these performances, so far as we
are able to judge, has higher merit than the last. The story is more
important, being the destruction of a powerful city, than the fall of a
single hero; the incidents rising out of this great event are likewise
of a very interesting nature, and the scenes in many places are not
without passion, though justly subject to a very general criticism, that
they are written with too little. Mr. Frowde has been industrious in
this play to conclude his acts with similes, which however exceptionable
for being too long and tedious for the situations of the characters who
utter them, yet are generally just and beautiful. At the end of the
first act he has the following simile upon sedition:

Sedition, thou art up; and, in the ferment,
To what may not the madding populace,
Gathered together for they scarce know what,
Now loud proclaiming their late, whisper'd grief,
Be wrought at length? Perhaps to yield the city.
Thus where the Alps their airy ridge extend,
Gently at first the melting snows descend;