does not wish for a greater measure of spriteliness and vigour? But he is at least one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance may be fafely pleased; and happy will be that reader whofe mind is difpofed by his verses, or his profe, to imitate him in all but his non-conformity, to copy his benevolence to man, and his reverence to God. A. PHILIPS. A. PHILIPS. F the birth or early part of the life of AMBROSE PHILIPS I have not been able to find any account. His academical education he received at St. John's College in Cambridge, where he firft folicited the notice of the world by some English verses, in the Collection published by the University on the death of queen Mary, From this time how he was employed, or in what station he paffed his life, is not yet discovered. He must have published his Pastorals before the year 1708, because they are evidently prior to those of Pope. He afterwards (1709) addreffed to the universal patron, the duke of Dorset, a poetical Letter from Copenhagen, which was publifhed in the Tatler, and is by Pope in one of his first Letters mentioned with high praise, as the production of a man who could write very nobly. Philips was a zealous Whig, and therefore eafily found access to Addison and Steele; but his ardour feems not to have procured him any thing more than kind words; fince he was reduced to tranflate the Perfian Tales for Tonfon, for which he was afterwards reproached, with this addition of contempt, that he worked for half-a-crown. The book is divided into many fections, for each of which if he received half-a-crown, his reward, as writers then were paid, was very liberal; but half-a-crown had a mean found, He was employed in promoting the principles of his party, by epitomifing Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams. The original book is written with fuch depravity of genius, fuch mixture of the fop and pedant, as has |