much thought,
yet, if they had been written by Addison, they would have had admirers:
little things are not valued but when they are done by those who can do
greater.

In his translations from "Pindar" he found the art of reaching all the
obscurity of the Theban bard, however he may fall below his sublimity;
he will be allowed, if he has less fire, to have more smoke. He has
added nothing to English poetry, yet at least half his book deserves to
be read: perhaps he valued most himself that part which the critic would
reject.

WEST.

Gilbert West is one of the writers of whom I regret my inability to give
a sufficient account; the intelligence which my inquiries have obtained
is general and scanty. He was the son of the Rev. Dr. West; perhaps him
who published "Pindar" at Oxford about the beginning of this century.
His mother was sister to Sir Richard Temple, afterwards Lord Cobham. His
father, purposing to educate him for the Church, sent him first to Eton,
and afterwards to Oxford; but he was seduced to a more airy mode of
life, by a commission in a troop of horse, procured him by his uncle. He
continued some time in the army, though it is reasonable to suppose
that he never sunk into a mere soldier, nor ever lost the love, or much
neglected the pursuit, of learning; and afterwards, finding himself more
inclined to civil employment, he laid down his commission, and engaged
in business under the Lord Townshend, then Secretary of State, with whom
he attended the King to Hanover.

His adherence to Lord Townshend ended in nothing but a nomination (May,
1729) to be Clerk-Extraordinary of the Privy Council, which produced no
immediate profit; for it only placed him in a state of expectation and
right of succession, and it was very long before a vacancy admitted him
to profit.

Soon afterwards he married, and settled himself in a very pleasant house
at Wickham, in Kent, where he devoted himself to learning and to piety.
Of his learning the late Collection exhibits evidence, which would have
been yet fuller if the dissertations which accompany his version of
"Pindar" had not been improperly omitted. Of his piety the
influence has, I hope, been extended far by his "Observations on the
Resurrection," published in 1747, for which the University of Oxford
created him a Doctor of Laws, by diploma (March 30, 1748), and would
doubtless have reached yet further had he lived to complete what he
had for some time meditat