and showed himself a man to whom the relish of life was not improving as its feast drew towards a close. He died in September, 1779,* of a hurt which he accidentally received in stepping out of a carriage; and, to the no small surprise of his friends, left behind him more than 30007., saved out of a very moderate income, arising principally from his half-pay. His Art of Preserving Health' is the most successful attempt in our language to incorporate material science with poetry. Its subject had the advantage of being generally interesting; for there are few things that we shall be more willing to learn, either in prose or verse, than the means of preserving the outward bulwark of all other blessings. At the same time the difficulty of poetically treating a subject which presented disease in all its associations is one of the most just and ordinary topics of his praise. Of the triumphs of poetry over such difficulty he had no doubt high precedents, to show that strong and true delineations of physical evil are not without an attraction of fearful interest and curiosity to the human mind; and that the enjoyment which the fancy derives from conceptions of the bloom and beauty of healthful nature may be heightened by contrasting them with the opposite pictures of her mortality and decay. Milton had turned disease itself into a subject of sublimity, in the vision of Adam, with that intensity of the fire of genius which converts whatever materials it meets with into its aliment; and Armstrong, though his powers were not Miltonic, had the courage to attempt what would have repelled a more timid taste. His Muse might be said to show a professional intrepidity in choosing the subject; and, like the physician who braves contagion (if allowed to prolong the simile), we may add that she escaped, on the whole, with little injury from the trial. By the title of the poem the author judiciously gave his theme a moral as well as a medical interest. He makes the influence of the passions an entire part of it. By professing to describe only how health is to be preserved, and not how it is to be restored, he avoids the unmanageable horrors of clinical detail; and, though he paints the disease, wisely spares us its pharmaceutical treatment. His course through the poem is sustained with lucid management and propriety. What is explained of the animal economy is obscured * [He died without a will, and was buried in the church of St. Paul, Covent-garden.] by no pedantic jargon, but made distinct, and, to a certain degree, picturesque to the conception. We need not indeed be reminded how small a portion of science can be communicated in poetry; but the practical maxims of science, which the Muse has stamped with imagery and attuned to harmony, have so far an advantage over those which are delivered in prose, that they become more agreeable and permanent acquisitions of the memory. If the didactic path of his poetry is, from its nature, rather level, he rises above it, on several occasions, with a considerable strength of poetical feeling. Thus, in recommending the vicinity of woods around a dwelling, that may shelter us from the winds whilst it enables us to hear their music, he introduces the following pleasing lines: "Oh! when the growling winds contend, and all In treating of diet he seems to have felt the full difficulty of an humble subject, and to have sought to relieve his precepts and physiological descriptions with all the wealth of allusion and imagery which his fancy could introduce. The appearance of a forced effort is not wholly avoided, even where he aims at superior strains, in order to garnish the meaner topics, as when he solemnly addresses the Naiads of all the rivers in the world in rehearsing the praises of a cup of water. But he closes the book in a strain of genuine dignity. After contemplating the effects of Time on the human body, his view of its influence dilates, with easy and majestic extension, to the universal structure of nature; and he rises from great to greater objects with a climax of sublimity :— "What does not fade? the tower that long had stood : Shook by the slow, but sure destroyer, Time, And all those worlds that roll around the sun, He may, in some points, be compared advantageously with the best blank-verse writers of the age; and he will be found free from their most striking defects. He has not the ambition of Akenside nor the verbosity of Thomson. On the other hand, shall we say that he is equal in genius to either of those poets? Certainly, his originality is nothing like Thomson's; and the rapture of his heroic sentiments is unequal to that of the author of The Pleasures of Imagination.' For, in spite of the too frequently false pomp of Akenside, we still feel that he has a devoted moral impulse, not to be mistaken for the cant of moralitya zeal in the worship of Virtue, which places her image in a high and hallowed light. Neither has his versification the nervous harmony of Akenside's, for his habit of pausing almost uniformly at the close of the line gives an air of formality to his numbers. His vein has less mixture than Thomson's; but its ore is not so fine. Sometimes we find him trying his strength with that author in the same walk of description, where, though correct and concise, he falls beneath the poet of 'The Seasons' in rich and graphic observation. He also contributed to 'The Castle of Indolence' some stanzas, describing the diseases arising from sloth, which form rather an useful background to the luxuriant picture of the Castle than a prominent part of its enchantment. On the whole he is likely to be remembered as a poet of judicious thoughts and correct expression; and, as far as the rarely successful application of verse to subjects of science can be admired, an additional merit must be ascribed to the hand which has reared poetical flowers on the dry and difficult ground of philosophy. JOHN LANGHORNE. [Born, 1735. Died, 1779.] JOHN LANGHORNE was the son of a beneficed clergyman in Lincolnshire. He was born at Kirkby Steven, in Westmoreland. His father dying when he was only four years old, the charge of giving him his earliest instruction devolved upon his mother, and she fulfilled the task with so much tenderness and care as to leave an indelible impression of gratitude upon his memory. He recorded the virtues of this parent on her tomb, as well as in an affectionate monody. Having finished his Ꮓ classical education at the school of Appleby, in his eighteenth year, he engaged himself as private tutor in a family near Rippon. His next employment was that of assistant to the freeschool of Wakefield. While in that situation he took deacon's orders; and, though he was still very young, gave indications of popular attraction as a preacher. He soon afterwards went as preceptor into the family of Mr. Cracroft, of Hackthorn, where he remained for a couple of years, and during that time entered his name at Clare Hall, Cambridge, though he never resided at his college, and consequently never obtained any degree. He had at Hackthorn a numerous charge of pupils, and, as he has not been accused of neglecting them, his time must have been pretty well occupied in tuition; but he found leisure enough to write and publish a great many pieces of verse, and to devote so much of his attention to a fair daughter of the family, Miss Anne Cracroft, as to obtain the young lady's partiality, and ultimately her hand. He had given her some instructions in the Italian, and, probably trusting that she was sufficiently a convert to the sentiment of that language, which pronounces that "all time is lost which is not spent in love," he proposed immediate marriage to her. She had the prudence, however, though secretly attached to him, to give him a firm refusal for the present; and our poet, struck with despondency at the disappointment, felt it necessary to quit the scene, and accepted of a curacy in the parish of Dagenham. The cares of love, it appeared, had no bad effect on his diligence as an author. He allayed his despair by an apposite ode to 'Hope;' and continued to pour out numerous productions in verse and prose, with that florid facility which always distinguished his pen. Among these, his Letters of Theodosius and Constantia' made him, perhaps, best known as a prose-writer. His 'Letters on Religious Retirement' were dedicated to Bishop Warburton, who returned him a most encouraging letter on his just sentiments in matters of religion; and, what was coming nearer to the author's purpose, took an interest in his worldly concerns. He was much less fortunate in addressing a poem, entitled 'The Viceroy,' to the Earl of Halifax, who was then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. This heartless piece of adulation was written with the view of obtaining his Lordship's patronage; but the viceroy was either too busy or too insensible to praise to take any notice of Langhorne. In his poetry of this period we find his 'Visions of Fancy,' his first part of The Enlargement of the Mind,' and his pastoral 'Valour and Genius,' written in answer to Churchill's' Prophecy of Famine.' In consequence of the gratitude of the Scotch for this last poem, he was presented with the diploma of doctor in divinity by the University of Edinburgh. His profession and religious writings gave an appearance of propriety to this compliment, which otherwise would not have been discoverable from any striking connexion of ideas between a doctorship of divinity and an eclogue on Valour and Genius.' 6 He came to reside permanently in London in 1764, having obtained the curacy and lectureship of St. John's, Clerkenwell. Being soon afterwards called to be assistant-preacher at Lincoln's-inn Chapel, he had there to preach before an audience which comprehended a much greater number of learned and intelligent persons than are collected in ordinary congregations; and his pulpit oratory was put to what is commonly reckoned a severe test. It proved to be also an honourable test. He continued in London for many years, with the reputation of a popular preacher and a ready writer. His productions in prose, besides those already named, were his 'Sermons, Effusions of Fancy and Friendship,' 'Frederick and Pharamond, or the Consolations of Human Life,' 'Letters between St. Evremond and Waller,' a translation of Plutarch's 'Lives,' written in conjunction with his brother, which might be reckoned a real service to the bulk of the reading community,* Memoirs of Collins,' and a translation of Denina's Dissertation on the Ancient Republics of Italy.' He also wrote for several years in 'The Monthly Review.' An attempt which he made in tragedy, entitled 'The Fatal Prophecy,' proved completely unsuccessful; and he so far acquiesced in the public decision as never to print it more than once. In an humbler walk of poetry he composed The Country Justice' and 'The Fables of Flora.' The 'Fables' are very garish. The Country Justice' was written from observations on the miseries of the poor, which came home to his own heart; and it has at least the merit of drawing our attention to the substantial interests of humanity.† The translation of Plutarch has been since corrected and improved by Mr. Wrangham. † [Perhaps on some inhospitable shore |