Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/456

This page has been validated.
452
LYTTELTON.
"This unadorned stone was placed here
"By the particular desire and express
"Directions of the Right Honourable
"George Lord Lyttelton,
"Who died August 22, 1773, aged 64."

Lord Lyttelton's Poems are the works of a man of literature and judgment, devoting part of his time to versification. They have nothing to be despised, and little to be admired. Of his "Progress of Love," it is sufficient blame to say that it is pastoral. His blank verse in "Blenheim" has neither much force nor much elegance. His little performances, whether Songs or Epigrams, are sometimes spritely, and sometimes insipid. His epistolary pieces have a smooth equability, which cannot much tire, because they are short, but which seldom elevates or surprizes. But from this censure ought to be excepted his "Advice to Belinda," which, though for the most part written when he was very young, contains much truth and much prudence, very elegantly and vigorously expressed, and shews a mind attentive to life, and a power of poetry which cultivation might have raised to excellence.

THE END.