Roscommon was not without his merit; he was always chaste, and sometimes harmonious; but the grand requisites of a poet, elevation, fire, and invention, were not given him, and for want of these, however pure his thoughts, he is a languid unentertaining writer.
Besides this essay on translated verse, he is the author of a translation of Horace’s Art of poetry; with some other little poems, and translations published in a volume of the minor poets.
Amongst the MSS. of Mr. Coxeter, we found lord Roscommon’s translation of Horace’s Art of Poetry, with some sketches of alterations he intended to make; but they are not great improvements; and this translation, of all his lordship’s pieces, is the most unpoetical.
Footnote:
1. Fenton.
End of the second volume.

