called, by Smith, "the
best Latin poem since the 'AEneid.'" Praise must not be too rigorously
examined; but the performance cannot be denied to be vigorous and
elegant. Having yet no public employment, he obtained (in 1699) a
pension of three hundred pounds a year, that he might be enabled to
travel. He stayed a year at Blois, probably to learn the French language
and then proceeded in his journey to Italy, which he surveyed with the
eyes of a poet. While he was travelling at leisure, he was far from
being idle: for he not only collected his observations on the country,
but found time to write his "Dialogues on Medals," and four acts of
Cato. Such, at least, is the relation of Tickell. Perhaps he only
collected his materials and formed his plan. Whatever were his other
employments in Italy, he there wrote the letter to Lord Halifax which is
justly considered as the most elegant, if not the most sublime, of his
poetical productions. But in about two years he found it necessary to
hasten home; being, as Swift informs us, distressed by indigence,
and compelled to become the tutor of a travelling squire, because his
pension was not remitted.

At his return he published his Travels, with a dedication to Lord
Somers. As his stay in foreign countries was short, his observations
are such as might be supplied by a hasty view, and consist chiefly in
comparisons of the present face of the country with the descriptions
left us by the Roman poets, from whom he made preparatory collections,
though he might have spared the trouble had he known that such
collections had been made twice before by Italian authors.

The most amusing passage of his book is his account of the minute
republic of San Marino; of many parts it is not a very severe censure to
say that they might have been written at home. His elegance of language,
and variegation of prose and verse, however, gain upon the reader; and
the book, though awhile neglected, became in time so much the favourite
of the public that before it was reprinted it rose to five times its
price.

When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of appearance
which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had been reduced,
he found his old patrons out of power, and was therefore, for a time, at
full leisure for the cultivation of his mind; and a mind so cultivated
gives reason to believe that little time was lost. But he remained not
long neglected or useless. The victory at Blenh