The wavy kingdoms of the deep below,
  Thy power, thy wisdom, and thy goodness shew,
  Here various beings without number stray,
  Croud the profound, or on the surface play. 
  Leviathan here, the mightiest of the train,
  Enormous! sails incumbent o’er the main. 
  All these thy watchful providence supplies;
  To thee alone, they turn their waiting eyes. 
  For them thou open’st thy exhaustless store,
  Till the capacious wish can grasp no more.

[Footnote A:  Biograph.  Brit.  Art, Brady.]

* * * * *

George Stepney, Esq;

This poet was descended of the family of the Stepneys of Pindigrast in Pembrokeshire, but born in Westminster in the year 1693.  He received the rudiments of his education in Westminster school, and after making some progress in literature there, he was removed to Trinity College in Cambridge, where he was cotemporary with Charles Montague, esq; afterwards earl of Halifax; and being of the same college with him, a very strict friendship was contracted between them.  To this lucky accident of being early known to Mr. Montague, was owing all the preferment Mr. Stepney afterwards enjoyed; for he seems not to have had parts sufficient to have risen to any distinction, without the immediate patronage of so great a man, as the lord Hallifax.  When Stepney first set out in life, he was perhaps attached to the Tory interest, for one of the first poems he wrote, was an Address to king James the Second, on his Accession to the Throne.  In this little piece, in which there is as little poetry, he compares that monarch to Hercules, but with what propriety let the reader judge.  Soon after the accession of James ii. when Monmouth’s rebellion broke out, the university of Cambridge, to demonstrate their zeal for the King, thought proper to burn the picture of that rash Prince, who had formerly been their chancellor.  Upon this occasion Stepney wrote some good verses, in answer to this question;

  ——­Sed quid
  Turba Remi? sequitur fortunam, ut semper
  et odit damnatos.

Upon the revolution he embraced another interest, and procured himself to be nominated for several foreign embassies.  In the year 1692 he went to the elector of Brandenburgh’s court in quality of envoy, and, in the year following, to the Imperial court in the same character.  In 1694 he was sent to the elector of Saxony, and two years after to the electors of Mentz, Cologn, &c. and the congress at Francfort.  He was employed in several other embassies, and in the year 1706 Queen Anne sent him envoy to the States General.  He was very successful in his negotiations, which occasioned his constant employment in the most weighty affairs.  At his leisure hours he composed several other pieces of poetry besides those already mentioned; which are chiefly these,

  An Epistle to the Earl of Hallifax, on his Majesty’s
  Voyage to Holland.