Having given this ſhort account of his life, which perhaps is all that is preſerved any where concerning him; we ſhall now conſider him, firſt, as a poet, and then as a proſe writer.
The Triumph of Peace was the earlieſt poem he wrote of any length, that appeared in public. It was written on occaſion of the peace of Ryſwick, and printed in the year 1677. A learned gentleman at Cambridge, in a letter to a friend of Mr. Hughes’s, dated the 28th of February 1697–8, gives the following account of the favourable reception this poem met with there, upon its firſt publication. ‘I think I never heard a poem read with ſo much admiration, as the Triumph of Peace was by our beſt critics here; nor a greater character given to a young poet, at his firſt appearing; no, not even to Mr. Congreve himſelf. So nobly elevated are his thoughts, his numbers ſo harmonious, and his turns ſo fine and delicate, that we cry out with Tully, on a like occaſion,
- ‘Noſtræ ſpes altera Romæ!’
The Court of Neptune, was written on king William’s return from Holland, two years after the peace, in 1699. This Poem was admired for the verſification, however, the muſical flow of the numbers is its leaſt praiſe; it rather deſerves to be valued for the propriety, and boldneſs of the figures and metaphors, and the machinery.
The following lines have been juſtly quoted as an inſtance of the author’s happy choice of metaphors.
As when the golden god, who rules the day,
Drives down his flaming chariot to the ſea,
And leaves the nations here, involved in night,
To diſtant regions he tranſports his light;
So William’s rays by turns, two nations cheer,
And when he ſets to them, he riſes here.
