of fome difference of opinion in matters of religion, and removed to Taunton in Somersetshire, where he finished his ftudies, and where he feems first to have officiated as a diffenting minister. About the year 1758, he went to fettle at Lympftone in Devonshire, and about the year 1762, he engaged with the Rev. Mr. Hogg and another gentleman, as tutors and managers of an academy at Exeter; but he continued ftill to correfpond with Scott, and in the time of vacation paid feveral vifits to Ware. He is fupposed to be the person to whom the verses, intitled To AN ABSENT FRIEND are addreffed.

While thou far hence on Albion's fouthern fhore, View'ft her white rocks, and hear'ft her ocean roar; Thro' scenes, where we together ftray'd, I ftray, And think o'er talk of many a long-paft day.

Our author alfo addreffed to him, WINTER PROSPECTS IN THE COUNan epiftle, which was intended for the Gentleman's Magazine, but ap

TRY,

peared

peared in a miscellany of poems, publifhed by G. Pearch, 1770.

About this time Scott feems to have entirely renounced all communication with Mr. Urban, having turned his defigns on a direct application to the public attention, in his poetical production, entitled ELEGIES DESCRIPTIVE AND MORAL, which he was now preparing for the prefs.

While he thus purfued his poetical ftudies, it may be reasonably fuppofed, from the general knowledge in, and acquaintance with books, which he certainly poffeffed, that he miffed no opportunity, and spared no pains or application, for his improvement in the acquirements requifite for one who was ambitious of holding a place in the republic of literature. That he made any great progress in the languages there is little reason to fuppofe: he indeed

might attain fome knowledge of the Latin, but that knowledge was probably very flender. From his inclination to know fomething of the excellencies of those poets, who have fo long held their claim to admiration, he feems, by a few remarks and references, to have looked into fome of the Auguftan writers, particularly Virgil, whofe fpirit would have been highly congenial to one whose profeffed aim was purity and correctness: but I think there is little room to believe that those occafional researches were ever improved into any thing like the familiar perufal of a Latin claffic. He had no acquaintance with the French or Italian.

For about twenty years after the removal of the family to Amwell, John Scott appears to have led a very retired life: for, having never had the small pox, as has been before mentioned, his father and mother were very apprehensive of the danger that might be incurred

from

from his excurfions to the metropolis, which, however extraordinary it may appear, though only at the distance of twenty miles, he is faid to have vifited but once during fo long a period. The hours in which he was not engaged in his closet in fedentary occupation, he used to employ in gardening, to which he had for fome time taken a particular liking.

Though he very early acquired the friendship and efteem of a large circle of acquaintance, yet he does not appear to have been known to any literary characters till the year 1760; after which time he began to make occafional, though cautious and fhort vifits to London.

In the spring of the year 1760, being then thirty years of age, after many repeated revifals and corrections, he published his Four Elegies, which were extremely well spoken of by the public

critics

critics of the times, and received with all the marks of attention that could be expected from the general clafs of readers to an anonymous performance, which, without appealing to the pasfions by inflammatory topics, or perfonal fatire, held out to the reader pure fentiments of religion and morality, clothed in the unaffected drefs of genuine and correct poetry.

The critics of the Monthly Review were very liberal in their approbation of this poem, and among other paffages noticed by them, is the following, wherein the poet speaks of the intolerant heat of the fummer in 1757, and breaks out into this forceable apoftrophe:

O! for fome fecret fhady cool recefs!

Some Gothic dome, o'er hung with darkfome trees, Where thick damp walls this raging heat reprefs, Where the long aifle invites the lazy breeze!

The