Then where's the pleasure, where 's the good, Of spending time and cost? For if your wit be n't understood, Your keeper's bliss is lost. But when the least regard I show To fools who thus advise, May I be dull enough to grow Most miserably wise! SONG. PHYLLIS, for shame, let us improve, A thousand different ways, Those few short moments snatch'd by love, From many tedious days. If you want courage to despise The censure of the grave, My love is full of noble pride, Nor can it e'er submit, To let that fop, Discretion, ride In triumph over it. False friends I have, as well as you, Who daily counsel me Fame and Ambition to pursue, SONG. CORYDON beneath a willow, By a murmuring current laid, How could Nature take delight, O! behold the burning man; Think I feel my dying pains, And be cruel if you can." With her conquest pleas'd, the dame THE LIFE OF STEPNEY, BY DR. JOHNSON. GEORGE STEPNEY, descended from the Stepneys of Pendigrast in Pembrokeshire, was born at Westminster in 1663. Of his father's condition or fortune I have no account'. Having received the first part of his education at Westminster, where he passed six years in the college, he went at nineteen to Cambridge', where he continued a friendship begun at school with Mr. Montague, afterwards earl of Halifax. They came to London together, and are said to have been invited into public life by the duke of Dorset. His qualifications recommended him to many foreign employments, so that his time seems to have been spent in negociations. In 1692 he was sent envoy to the elector of Brandenburgh; in 1693, to the imperial court; in 1694, to the elector of Saxony; in 1696, to the electors of Mentz and Cologne, and the congress at Frankfort; in 1698, a second time to Brandenburgh; in 1699, to the king of Poland; in 1701, again to the emperor; and in 1706, to the states general. In 1697 he was made one of the commissioners of trade. His life was busy, and not long. He died in 1707; and is buried in Westminster Abbey, with this epitaph, which Jacob transcribed: H. S. E. GEORGIUS STEPNEIUS, Armiger, Ob Ingenii acumen, Morum Suavitatem, Rerum Usum, Virorum Amplissimorum Consuetudinem, Linguæ, Styli, ac Vitæ Elegantiam, Præclara Officia cum Britanniæ tum Europæ præstita, Suâ ætate multum celebratus, Apud posteros semper celebrandus; It has been conjectured, that our poet was either son or grandson of Charles, third son of sir John See Granger's History, vol. ii. p. 396, edit. 8vo. 1775. Mr. ? He was entered of Trinity College, and took his master's degree in 1689. H. Plurimas Legationes obiit Spem in illo repositam On the left hand, G. S. Ex Equestri Familiâ Stepneiorum, De Pendegrast, in Comitatu Westmonasterii natus est, A. D. 1663, Sancti Petri Westmonast. A. 1676. Frequentiâ, huc elatus, 1707, It is reported that the juvenile compositions of Stepney "made grey authors blush." I know not whether his poems will appear such wonders to the present age. One cannot always easily find the reason for which the world has sometimes conspired to squander praise. It is not very unlikely, that he wrote very early as well as he ever wrote; and the performances of youth have many favourers, because the authors yet lay no claim to public honours, and are therefore not considered as rivals by the dis tributors of fame. He apparently professed himself a poet, and added his name to those of the other wits in the version of Juvenal; but he is a very licentious translator, and does not recompense his neglect of the author by beauties of his own. In his original poems, now and then, a happy line may perhaps be found, and now and then a short composition may give pleasure. But there is, in the whole, little either of the grace of wit, or the vigour of nature. |