[270] Knightly Chetwood, whom Dryden elsewhere terms "learned and every way excellent," (Vol. XIV. p. 49.) contributed to the Second Book of the Georgics those lines which contain the praises of Italy. Knightly Chetwood was born in 1652. He was a particular friend of Roscommon, and, being of Tory principles, he obtained high preferment in the church, and was nominated to the see of Bristol; but the Revolution prevented his instalment. In April 1707 he was made Dean of Gloucester, and died 11th. April, 1720. The Life of Virgil has usually been ascribed to William Walsh, whose merits as a minor poet are now forgotten, but who still lives in the grateful strains of Pope, whose juvenile essays he encouraged, as well as in the encomium of Dryden, whom he patronised in age and adversity. I have left his name in possession of the Essay on the Pastorals, although it also was probably written by Dr Chetwood. See MALONE, Vol. III. p. 549. [271] There is great justice in this observation. The prevalence of a system, founded in egotism and self-indulgence, which teaches, that pleasure was the greatest good, and pain the most intolerable evil, as surely indicates the downfal of the state, as the decay of morality. [272] See _Suetonius_, Life of Octavius, chap. 94. [273] Walsh might have found an hundred poets of his own time, who would have expressed themselves as warmly as Horace on a similar occasion. Our Dryden, for example: Tell good Barzillai, thou canst sing no more; And tell thy soul, she should have fled before. But neither Horace nor Dryden expected to die a day the sooner for these ardent expressions; and, in extolling the gratitude of the ancients at the expence of the moderns, Walsh only gives another instance of the cant which distinguishes his compositions. [274] An affected Gallicism, for proud of the services. [275] Certainly there was no age in Britain, where, if a prince chose to hear an author read his works, and his lungs happened to fail him, the favourite, if present, and capable, would not have been happy to have continued the recitation. This is one of those hackneyed compliments to the manners of antiquity, which are often paid without the least foundation. [276] Walsh seems to have been but a slender historian. Oliver's council well knew his private wishes, but were determined to counteract them. [277] Many of these resemblances, and particularly the last, seem extremely fanciful. The same may be said of most of those which follow; but this comes of seeing too far into a mill-stone. [278] All this charge is greatly overstrained. The critic, in censuring poor Dido and her sister, totally forgets their very reasonable ground of provocation. [279] The critic should have considered, that Troy was not actually blazing when the old counsellor pronounced his panegyric upon Helen's beauty. [280] "Essay on Poetry," by Sheffield, Marquis of Normanby, originally Earl of Mulgrave, and afterwards Duke of Buckingham.