he paid a vifit on foot with his friend Sprat to a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Chertsey, which they prolonged and feasted too much, till midnight. On their return home they mistook their way, and were obliged to pass the whole night exposed under a hedge, where Cowley caught a fevere cold, attended with a fever, that terminated in his death.

THE verfes on Silence are a fenfible imitation of the Earl of Rochester's on No

OTWAY had an intimate friend who was murdered in the street. One may guess at his forrow, who has fo feelingly described true affection in his Venice Preserved. He pursued the murderer on foot who fled to France, as far as Dover, where he was feized with a fever, occafioned by the fatigue, which afterwards carried him to his grave in

London.

Sir JOHN SUCKLING was robbed by his Valet-deChambre; the moment he discovered it, he clapped on his boots in a paffionate hurry, and perceived not a large rusty nail that was concealed at the bottom which pierced his heel, and brought on a mortification.

LEE had been fome time confined for lunacy, to a very low diet, but one night he escaped from his phyfician, and drank fo immoderately, that he fell down in the Strand, was run over by a hackney-coach, and killed on the spot. These three facts are from Mr. Spence: though OTWAY'S death has been differently related.

thing; which piece, together with his Satire on Man from the fourth of Boileau, and the tenth Satire of Horace, are the only pieces of this profligate nobleman, which modesty or common fenfe will allow any man to read. Rochefter had much energy in his thoughts and diction, and though the ancient satirifts often ufe great liberty in their expreffions; yet, as the ingenious hiftorian * obferves," their freedom no more resembles the licence of Rochefter, than the nakedness of an Indian does that of a common prostitute."

POPE in this imitation has difcovered a fund of folid fenfe, and just observation upon vice and folly, that are very remarkable in a perfon fo extremely young as he was, at the time he compofed it. I believe on a fair comparison with Rochester's lines, it will be found, that although the turn of the fatire be copied, yet it is excelled. That Rochefter fhould write a fatire on

* Hume's History of Great-Britain. Vol. II. pag. 434

Man,

Man, I am not furprized; it is the bufinefs of the Libertine to degrade his fpecies, and debase the dignity of human nature, and thereby destroy the most efficacious incitements to lovely and laudable actions but that a writer of Boileau's purity of manners, should represent his kind in the dark and disagreeable colours he has done, with all the malignity of a difcontented HOBBIST, is a lamentable perverfion of fine talents, and is a real injury to society. It is a fact worthy the attention of those who study the hiftory of learning, that the grofs licentiousness and applauded debauchery of Charles the Second's court, proved almost as pernicious to the progress of polite literature and the fine arts that began to revive after the Grand Rebellion, as the gloomy fuperftition, the absurd cant, and formal hypocrify that disgraced this nation, during the ufurpation of Cromwell *.

ARTEMISIA

Lord Bolingbroke used to relate, that his Great Grandfather Ireton, and Fleetwood, being one day engaged in a private drinking party with Cromwell, and wanting VOL. II.

E

The

ARTEMISIA and PHRYNE are two characters in the manner of the Earl of Dorfet, an elegant writer, and amiable man, equally noted for the feverity of his fatire, and the sweetness of his manners, and who gave the fairest proof that these two qualities are by no means incompatible. greatest wits, fays Addifon, I have ever converfed with, were perfons of the best tempers. Dorset poffeffed the rare fecret of uniting energy with eafe, in his striking compofitions. His verfes to Mr. Edward Howard, to Sir Thomas St. Serfe, his epilogue to the Tartuffe, his fong written at fca in the first Dutch war, his ballad on knotting, and on Lewis XIV. may be named as examples of this happy talent, and as confutations of a fentiment of the

to uncork a bottle, they could not find their bottle-screw, which was fallen under the table. Juft at that instant, an officer entered to inform the protector, that a deputation "Tell from the prefbyterian minifters attended without. them, fays Cromwell, with a countenance inftantly compofed, that I am retired, that I cannot be disturbed, for Ț am feeking the Lord." and turning afterwards to his companions, he added, "These fcoundrels think we are fecking the Lord, and we are only looking for our bottle-fcrew."

judicious

judicious M. de Montefquieu, who in his noble chapter on the English Constitution, Book 19, fpeaks thus of our writers. "As fociety and the mixing in company, gives to men a quicker sense of ridicule, so retirement more difpofes men to reflect on the heinoufnefs of vice; the fatirical writings therefore of fuch a nation are sharp and fevere, and we fhall find among them many Juvenals, without discovering one Horace.

THE DESCRIPTION of the LIFE of a Country Parfon is a lively imitation of Swift*, and is full of humour. The point of the likeness confifts in defcribing the objects

* Sce a Pipe of Tobacco, p. 282, vol. 2. Dodfley's Mifcell. where Mr. Hawkins Brown has imitated, from a hint of Dr. John Hoadly, fix later English poets with fucccfs, viz. Swift, POPE, Thomfon, Young, Phillips, Cibber. Some of thefe writers thinking themselves burlesqued, are faid to have been mortified. But POPE observed on the occafion, "Brown is an excellent copyift, and thofe who take his imitations amifs, are much in the wrong; they are very ftrongly mannered, and few perhaps could write fo well if they were not fo."- -In Pora's imitation of the fixth epistle of Horace, there were two remarkable lines, E 2

the