OF Mr. Somervile’s life I am not able to say anything that can satisfy
curiosity. He was a gentleman whose estate lay in Warwickshire; his
house, where he was born in 1693, is called Edston, a seat inherited from
a long line of ancestors; for he was said to be of the first family in
his county. He tells of himself that he was born near the Avon’s banks.
He was bred at Winchester school, and was elected fellow of New College.
It does not appear that in the places of his education he exhibited any
uncommon proofs of genius or literature. His powers were first displayed
in the country, where he was distinguished as a poet, a gentleman, and a
skilful and useful justice of the peace.
Of the close of his life, those whom his poems have delighted will read
with pain the following account, copied from the “Letters” of his friend
Shenstone, by whom he was too much resembled:—
“—Our old friend Somervile is dead! I did not imagine I could have been
so sorry as I find myself on this occasion. _Sublatum quærimus_. I can
now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age, and to distress of
circumstances: the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to
think on. For a man of high spirit conscious of having (at least in one
production) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by
wretches that are low in every sense; to be forced to drink himself into
pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind is a
misery.”—He died July 19, 1742, and was buried at Wotton, near Henley on
Arden.
His distresses need not be much pitied: his estate is said to be fifteen
hundred a year, which by his death has devolved to Lord Somervile of
Scotland. His mother, indeed, who lived till ninety, had a jointure of
six hundred.
It is with regret that I find myself not better enabled to exhibit
memorials of a writer who at least must be allowed to have set a good
example to men of his own class, by devoting part of his time to elegant
knowledge; and who has shown, by the subjects which his poetry has
adorned, that it is practicable to be at once a skilful sportsman and a
man of letters.
Somervile has tried many modes of poetry; and though perhaps he has not
in any reached such excellence as to raise much envy, it may commonly be
said at least, that “he writes very well for a gentleman.” His serious
pieces are sometimes elevated; and his trifles are sometimes elegant. In
his verses to Addison, the couplet which mentions Clio is written with
the most exquisite delicacy of praise; it exhibits one of those happy
strokes that are seldom attained. In his Odes to Marlborough there are
beautiful lines; but in the second Ode he shows that he knew little of
his hero, when he talks of his private virtues. His subjects are
commonly such as require no great depth of thought or energy of
expression. His Fables are generally stale, and therefore excite no
curiosity. Of his favourite, “The Two Springs,” the fiction is
unnatural, and the moral inconsequential. In his Tales there is too much
coarseness, with too little care of language, and not sufficient rapidity
of narration. His great work is his Chase, which he undertook in his
maturer age, when his ear was improved to the approbation of blank verse,
of which, however, his two first lines give a bad specimen. To this poem
praise cannot be totally denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to write
with great intelligence of his subject, which is the first requisite to
excellence; and though it is impossible to interest the common readers of
verse in the dangers or pleasures of the chase, he has done all that
transition and variety could easily effect; and has with great propriety
enlarged his plan by the modes of hunting used in other countries.
With still less judgment did he choose blank verse as the vehicle of
“Rural Sports.” If blank verse be not tumid and gorgeous, it is crippled
prose; and familiar images in laboured language have nothing to recommend
them but absurd novelty, which, wanting the attractions of nature, cannot
please long. One excellence of the “Splendid Shilling” is, that it is
short. Disguise can gratify no longer than it deceives.