GEORGE GRANVILLE,

LORD LANSDOWN,

IMITATED Waller2; but as that poet has been

much excelled since, a faint master must strike still less.

copy of a faint

It was fortunate when persecution

for his lordship, that in an age raged so fiercely against lukewarm authors, he had an intimacy with the inquisitor-general : how else would such lines as these have escaped the Bathos?

"When thy gods

Enlighten thee to speak their dark decrees⚫."

[And wished to be regarded as his poetical successor. Witness his lordship's Preface: "As these poems seem to begin where Mr. Waller left off, though far unequal and short of so inimitable an original; they may, however, be permitted to remain to posterity as a faithful register of the reigning beauties in the succeeding age."]

› ❝ Heroic Love," scene i. [Yet Dryden thus complimented him on this his "excellent tragedy:"

"Auspicious poet, wert thou not my friend,
How could I envy what I must commend!
But since 't is Nature's law in love and wit,

That youth should reign, and withering age submit,

With less regret those laurels I resign,

Which dying on my brows, revive on thine."]