by
Shenstone, to have possessed the virtues as well as the vices of the
squirearchy of that age; their frankness, sociality, and heart, as well
as their improvidence and tendency to excess; and may altogether be
called a sublimated Squire Western.

As to his poetry, much of it is beneath criticism. His "Fables," "Tales,"
"Hobbinol, or Rural Games," &c., have all in them poetical lines, but
cannot, as a whole, be called poetry. He wrote some verses, entitled
"Address to Addison," on the latter purchasing an estate in Warwickshire
(he gave his Countess L4000 in exchange for it). In this there are two
lines which Dr Johnson highly commends, saying "They are written with
the most exquisite delicacy of praise; they exhibit one of those happy
strokes that are seldom attained."--Here is this bepraised couplet:--

"When panting virtue her last efforts made,
You brought your Clio to the virgin's aid."

Clio, of course, refers to Addison's signatures in the "Spectator,"
consisting of the four letters composing the name of the Muse of History,
used in alternation. We cannot coincide in Johnson's encomium. The
allusion is, we think, at once indecent and obscure; and what, after all,
does it say, but that Addison's papers aided the struggling cause of
virtue?

In the same verses we find a fulsome and ridiculous preference of Addison
to Shakspeare!

"In heaven he sings, on earth your Muse supplies
The important loss, and heals our weeping eyes;
Correctly great, she melts each flinty heart,
With EQUAL GENIUS, but SUPERIOR ART."

Surely the force of falsehood and flattery can go no further.

It is a pleasure to turn from these small and shallow things to the
"Chase," which, if not a great poem, is founded on a most poetical
subject, and which, here and there, sparkles into fine fancy. Dr Johnson
truly remarks, that Somerville "set a good example to men of his own
class, by devoting a part of his time to elegant knowledge, and has
shewn, by the subjects which his poetry has adorned, that it is
practicable to be at once a skilful sportsman and a man of letters." But
besides this purpose to be the poet--and hitherto he has been almost
the sole poet of the squirearchy, as considered apart from the
aristocracy--Somerville has the merit of being inspired by a genuine love
for the subject. He writes directly from the testimony of his own eyes,
and the impulses of his own heart. He has obviously had the mould of his
poem