SOMERVILLE.

The family of De Somerville, were of Roman origin and settled at a very remote period, near Ebreux in Normandy, Sir Walter de Somerville had a considerable command in the arıny of William, duke of Normandy, in his invasion of England, and was rewarded for his services with the lordship of Whichenovre in Staffordshire, and Aston in Gloucestershire. His eldest son, Sir Walter de Somerville, succeeded him in this lordship; and from him was descended Sir Philip de Somerville, lord of Whichenovre, in the reign of Henry 5, who held the lands of Whichenovre, Scirescot Ridware, Netherton, and Cowlee, of the earls of Lancaster, by the memorable service of giving a flitch of bacon as a reward to any husband and wife who could say that they never had had the least difference, nor one contradicted the other within the space of 12 months after marriage, &c. William de Somerville, the 2d son of the first Sir Walter, having contracted a friendship with David 1, king of Scotland, when he was in England, accompanied him thither and obtained from him the barony of Cornwath in Lanarkshire, where he settled. He was the progenitor of the present lord Somerville, and other families of that name in Scotland. Roger de Somerville, the third son of the first sir Walter, received from his father the lordship of Aston in Gloucestershire, which was called after him Somerville-Aston. Sir John Somerville, his grandson, obtained by marriage several estates in Warwickshire, which, with Somerville-Aston, descended to Robert Somerville, esq. his lineal representative, father Literary Miscellany, No. 80 1

of William Somerville, our poet, who was born at Edston in Warwickshire, in 1692. Of the personal history of Somerville, some dates and a few facts, scarcely more numerous than those which compose the inscription of a country tombstone, are all which have descended to posterity. Not many of our poets, while living had the power of attracting much attention; their real merits were known but to a few, and those were generally sparing in their praises. He was educated at Winchester school, and afterwards elected to one of the vacancies in New College Oxford. How long he resided at Oxford is not known, or what connections he formed there; but he seems to have been an early friend to the Hanover succession, aud other measures resulting from principles of free opinions. He distinguished himself as an elegant poet, an accomplished gentleman, an active magistrate; and, what is uncommon, the characters of a scholar, and a sportsman were in him united. He was a man of high spirit, practised an unbounded hospitality, and was wholly negligent of cconomy, by which he impaired his fortune, and subjected himself to distresses, which met with little commisseration. In 1730 he bargained with lord Somerville (who claimed and obtained, in 1722, the ancient peerage, which had been dormant since 1618,) for the reversion of his estate at his death. He was the intimate friend of Shenstone, his neighbour, whom he resembled much in negligence of economy. "[ loved Somerville," says Shenstone, "because he knew so perfectly what belonged to the flocci-nauci-nihili-plification of money." Of the close of Somerville's life the following affecting account appears in one of Shenstone's letters. "Our old friend Som

erville is dead! I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself upon 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 baving (at least in one production) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are very 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, in the 50th year of his age, and was buried at Wotten, near Henly, on Arden. In the sylvan grounds of the Leasowes, Shenstone placed a solitary urn a little out of the beaten track, and he thus inscribed it. "Ingenio et amicitiæ Gulielmi Somerville; upon the opposite side, "G. S. posuit debita spargens lacrima favillam vatis amica." The Chase, in this country, since the wolves became extinct, is an unmanly and often brutal sport, no person of genuine sympathy will join the pack in pursuit of a timid hare or deer, and yet Somerville has certainly adorned his subject very much. Every one must at least admire the concluding part.

Ye guardian powers! who make mankind your care, give me to know wise Nature's hidden depths, trace each mysterious cause, with judgment read th' expanded volume, and submiss adore that great creative will, who at a word spoke forth the wondrous scene. But if my soul, to this gross clay confin'd, flutters on earth with less ambitious wing; unskill'd to range from orb to orb, where Newton leads the way; and view with piercing eyes the grand machine,