William Somervile, our poet, was born in the year 1677, at Ederston, “near Avona’s winding stream,” as he himself records in one of his poems. At the age of thirteen, in the year 1690, he was admitted a scholar of Winchester College, and continued there until the year 1694, when he was sent to New College, Oxford. It does not appear, as Dr. Johnson observes, that in the places of his education, he exhibited any uncommon proofs of genius or literature. He is said, by the same author, to have been elected a Fellow of New College; but as he does not seem to have taken any degree at the university, that assertion may be doubted. It is more probable, that he soon quitted the college for the country, where his powers were first displayed, and where he was distinguished as a poet, a gentleman, and a skilful and useful justice of the peace. How soon he began to write verses we are not informed, there being few dates in his poems; but it is certain that he was no early candidate for literary fame. He had reached the age of fifty years, before he presented any of his works to the publick, or was the least known. In the year 1727, he published his first volume of Poems; the merit of which, like most collections of the same kind, is various. Dr. Johnson says, that, “though, perhaps, he has not, in any mode of poetry, reached such excellence as to raise much envy, it may commonly be said, at least, that he ‘writes very well for a gentleman.’ His serious pieces are sometimes elevated, and his trifles are sometimes elegant. In his verses to Addison, the couplet which mentions _Clio_, is written with the most exquisite delicacy of praise: it exhibits one of those happy strokes that are seldom attained. In his Odes to Marlborough, there are beautiful lines; but in the second ode, he shows that he knew little of his hero, when he talks of his private virtues. His subjects are commonly such as require no great depth of thought, or energy of expression. His fables are generally stale, and therefore excite no curiosity. Of his favourite, _the Two Springs_, the fiction is unnatural, and the moral inconsequential. In his tales, there is too much coarseness, with too little care of language, and not sufficient rapidity of narration.” To the justice of this estimate, it may be doubted whether an unreserved assent will be readily given. Dr. Johnson has often dealt out his praise with too scanty and parsimonious a hand.