"By any power, by this right hand

"it fhou'd.

"And though my outward ftate "misfortune bath

$6 Depreft thus low, it cannot reach .66 my faith."

"Thus by his fraud and our own faith o'ercome,

A feigned tear deftroys us, against

"" whom

Tydides nor Achilles could prevail, Nor ten years conflict, nor a thou"fand fail."

He is not very careful to vary the ends of his verfes: in one paffage the word die rhimes three couplets in fix.

Most of these petty faults are in his first productions, when he was lefs fkilful, or at least less dexterous in the use of words; and though they had been more frequent, they could only have leffened the grace, not the ftrength, of his compofition. He is one of the writers that improved our taste, and advanced our language, and whom we ought therefore to read with gratitude, though, having done much, he left much to do.

SPRA T.

HOMAS SPRAT was born

TH

in 1636, at Tallaton in Devonfhite, the fon of a clergyman; and having been educated, as he tells of himself, not at Westminster or Eaton, but at a little fchool by the churchyard fide, became a commoner of Wadham College in Oxford in 1651; and, being chofen scholar next year, proceeded through the usual academical course, and in 1657 became mafter of arts. He

obtained a fellowship, and commenced

poet.

In 1659, his poem on the death of Oliver was published, with those of Dryden and Waller. In his dedication to Dr. Wilkins he appears a very willing and liberal encomiaft, both of the living and the dead. He implores his patron's excufe of his verses, both as falling fo infinitely below the full and fublime genius of that excellent poet who made this way of writing free of our nation, and being fo little equal and proportioned to the renown of the prince on whom they were written; fuch great actions and lives deferving to be the subject of the noblest pens and most divine phanfies. He proceeds: Having fo long experienced your

care