defeated, and it is a rule in writing to suit the
language to the subject. Philips's Splendid Shilling may have pleased,
because, its manner was new, and we often find people of the best sense
throw away their admiration on monsters, which are seldom to be seen,
and neglect more regular beauty, and juster proportion.

It is with reserve we offer this criticism against the authority of Dr.
Sewel, and the Tatler; but we have resolved to be impartial, and the
reader who is convinced of the propriety and beauty of the Splendid
Shilling, has, no doubt, as good a right to reject our criticism, as we
had to make it.

Our author's coming to London, we are informed, was owing to the
persuasion of some great persons, who engaged him to write on the Battle
of Blenheim; his poem upon which introduced him to the earl of Oxford,
and Henry St. John, esq; afterwards lord viscount Bolingbroke, and other
noble patrons. His swelling stile, it must be owned, was better suited
to a subject of this gravity and importance, than to that of a light and
ludicrous nature: the exordium of this piece is poetical, and has an
allusion to that of Spencer's Fairy Queen:

From low and abject themes the grov'ling muse
Now mounts aerial to sing of arms
Triumphant, and emblaze the martial acts
Of Britain's hero.

The next poem of our author was his Cyder, the plan of which he laid at
Oxford, and afterwards compleated it in London. He was determined to
make choice of this subject, from the violent passion he had for the
productions of nature, and to do honour to his native country. The poem
was founded upon the model of Virgil's Georgics, and approaches pretty
near it, which, in the opinion of critics in general, and Mr. Dryden in
particular, even excels the Divine AEneid: He imitates Virgil rather like
a pursuer, than a follower, not servilely tracing, but emulating his
beauties; his conduct and management are superior to all other copiers
of that original; and even the admired Rapin (says Dr. Sewel) is much
below him, both in design and success, 'for the Frenchman either fills
his garden with the idle fables of antiquity, or new transformations
of his own; and, in contradiction of the rules of criticism, has
injudiciously blended the serious, and sublime stile of Virgil, with the
elegant turns of Ovid in his Metamorphosis; nor has the great genius of
Cowley succeeded better in his Books of Plants, who, besides the same
faults with the former,