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He says what is incontrovertible and what has been said over and over again with much gravity, but says nothing new, sprightly or entertaining; travelling on a plain level flat road, with great composure almost through the whole long and tedious volume, which is little better than a dull sermon in very indifferent verse on Truth, the Progress of Error, Charity, and some other grave subjects.

If this author had followed the advice given by Caraccioli, and which he has chosen for one of the mottoes prefixed to these poems, he would have clothed his indisputable truths in some more becoming disguise, and rendered his work much more agreeable.

In its present shape we cannot compliment him on its beauty; for as this bard himself sweetly sings:-- "The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear, Falls soporific on the listless ear." In justice to the bard it ought to be said that he wrote under the eye of the Rev.John Newton, to whom the design had been duly submitted, and who had given his _imprimatur_ in the shape of a preface which took Johnson the publisher aback by its gravity.