WEST.
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ILBERT WEST is one of the writers of whom I regret my inability to givea sufficient account; the intelligence which my inquiries have obtainedis general and scanty. He was the son of the Rev. Dr. West; perhaps himwho published “Pindar” at Oxford about the beginning of this century.His mother was sister to Sir Richard Temple, afterwards Lord Cobham. Hisfather, purposing to educate him for the Church, sent him first to Eton,and afterwards to Oxford; but he was seduced to a more airy mode of life,by a commission in a troop of horse, procured him by his uncle. Hecontinued some time in the army, though it is reasonable to suppose thathe never sunk into a mere soldier, nor ever lost the love, or muchneglected the pursuit, of learning; and afterwards, finding himself moreinclined to civil employment, he laid down his commission, and engaged inbusiness under the Lord Townshend, then Secretary of State, with whom heattended the King to Hanover. His adherence to Lord Townshend ended in nothing but a nomination (May,1729) to be Clerk-Extraordinary of the Privy Council, which produced noimmediate profit; for it only placed him in a state of expectation andright of succession, and it was very long before a vacancy admitted himto profit. Soon afterwards he married, and settled himself in a very pleasant houseat Wickham, in Kent, where he devoted himself to learning and to piety.Of his learning the late Collection exhibits evidence, which would havebeen yet fuller if the dissertations which accompany his version of“Pindar” had not been improperly omitted. Of his piety the influencehas, I hope, been extended far by his “Observations on the Resurrection,”published in 1747, for which the University of Oxford created him aDoctor of Laws, by diploma (March 30, 1748), and would doubtless havereached yet further had he lived to complete what he had for some timemeditated—the “Evidences of the Truth of the New Testament.” Perhaps itmay not be without effect to tell that he read the prayers of the publicLiturgy every morning to his family, and that on Sunday evening he calledhis servants into the parlour and read to them first a sermon and thenprayers. Crashaw is now not the only maker of verses to whom may begiven the two venerable names of Poet and Saint. He was very oftenvisited by Lyttelton and Pitt, who, when they were weary of faction anddebates, used at Wickham to find books and quiet, a decent table, andliterary conversation. There is at Wickham a walk made by Pitt; and,what is of far more importance, at Wickham, Lyttelton received thatconviction which produced his “Dissertation on St. Paul.” These twoillustrious friends had for a while listened to the blandishments ofinfidelity; and when West’s book was published, it was bought by some whodid not know his change of opinion, in expectation of new objectionsagainst Christianity; and as infidels do not want malignity, theyrevenged the disappointment by calling him a Methodist. Mr. West’s income was not large; and his friends endeavoured, but withoutsuccess, to obtain an augmentation. It is reported that the education ofthe young Prince was offered to him, but that he required a moreextensive power of superintendence than it was thought proper to allowhim. In time, however, his revenue was improved; he lived to have one ofthe lucrative clerkships of the Privy Council (1752); and Mr. Pitt atlast had it in his power to make him Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital. Hewas now sufficiently rich; but wealth came too late to be long enjoyed;nor could it secure him from the calamities of life; he lost (1755) hisonly son; and the year after (March 26) a stroke of the palsy brought tothe grave one of the few poets to whom the grave might be without itsterrors. Of his translations I have only compared the first Olympic Ode with theoriginal, and found my expectation surpassed, both by its elegance andits exactness. He does not confine himself to his author’s train ofstanzas; for he saw that the difference of languages required a differentmode of versification. The first strophe is eminently happy; in thesecond he has a little strayed from Pindar’s meaning, who says, “If thou,my soul, wishest to speak of games, look not in the desert sky for aplanet hotter than the sun; nor shall we tell of nobler games than thoseof Olympia.” He is sometimes too paraphrastical. Pindar bestows uponHiero an epithet which, in one word, signifies _delighting in horses_; aword which, in the translation, generates these lines:— “Hiero’s royal brows, whose careTends the courser’s noble breed,Pleased to nurse the pregnant mare,Pleased to train the youthful steed.” Pindar says of Pelops, that “he came alone in the dark to the White Sea;”and West— “Near the billow-beaten sideOf the foam-besilvered main,Darkling, and alone, he stood:” which, however, is less exuberant than the former passage. A work of this kind must, in a minute examination, discover manyimperfections; but West’s version, so far as I have considered it,appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities. His “Institution of the Garter” (1742) is written with sufficientknowledge of the manners that prevailed in the age to which it isreferred, and with great elegance of diction; but, for want of a processof events, neither knowledge nor elegance preserves the reader fromweariness. His “Imitations of Spenser” are very successfully performed, both withrespect to the metre, the language, and the fiction; and being engaged atonce by the excellence of the sentiments, and the artifice of the copy,the mind has two amusements together. But such compositions are not tobe reckoned among the great achievements of intellect, because theireffect is local and temporary; they appeal not to reason or passion, butto memory, and presuppose an accidental or artificial state of mind. Animitation of Spenser is nothing to a reader, however acute, by whomSpenser has never been perused. Works of this kind may deserve praise,as proofs of great industry and great nicety of observation; but thehighest praise, the praise of genius, they cannot claim. The noblestbeauties of art are those of which the effect is co-extended withrational nature, or at least with the whole circle of polished life; whatis less than this can be only pretty, the plaything of fashion, and theamusement of a day. There is in the _Adventurer_ a paper of verses given to one of theauthors as Mr. West’s, and supposed to have been written by him. Itshould not be concealed, however, that it is printed with Mr. Jago’s namein Dodsley’s Collection, and is mentioned as his in a letter ofShenstone’s. Perhaps West gave it without naming the author, andHawkesworth, receiving it from him, thought it his; for his he thoughtit, as he told me, and as he tells the public.
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