commissioner of the prizes, keeper of the records in Birmingham's tower, and vicar-general to Dr Marsh, the primate.

Bor it is vain to put wealth within the reach of him who will not stretch out his hands to take it. King soon found a friend, as idle and thoughtless as himself, in Upton, one of the judges, who had a pleasant house called Mountown, near Dublin, to which King frequently retired; delighting to neglect his interest, forget his cares, and desert his duty.

HERE he wrote Mully of Mountown, a poem by which, though fanciful readers, in the pride of sagacity, have given it a political interpretation, was meant originally no more than it expressed, as it was dictated only by the author's delight in the quiet of Mountown.

IN 1708, when Lord Wharton was sent to govern Ireland, King returned to London, with his poverty, his idleness, and his wit; and published some essays, called Useful Transactions. His Voyage to the Island of Cajamar is particularly commended. He then wrote the Art of Love, a poem remarkable, notwithstanding its title, for purity of sentiment; and in 1709 imitated Horace in an Art of Cookery, which he published, with some letters to Dr Lister.

IN 1710, he appeared as a lover of the Church, on the side of Sacheverell; and was supposed to have concurred at least in the projection of The Examiner. His eyes were open to all the operations of Whiggism; and he bestowed some strictures upon Dr Kennet's adulatory sermon at the funeral of the Duke of Devonshire.

THE History of the Heathen Gods, a book composed for schools, was written by him in 1711. The work is useful; but might have been produced without the powers of King. The same year, he published Rufinus, an historical essay; and a poem in

tended to dispose the nation to think as he thought of the Duke of Marlborough and his adherents.

IN 1711, competence, if not plenty, was again put into his power. He was, without the trouble of attendance, or the mortification of a request, made gazetteer. Swift, Friend, Prior, and other men of the same party, brought him the key of the gazetteer's office. He was now again placed in a profitable employment, and again threw the benefit away. An Act of Insolvency made his business at that time particularly troublesome; and he would not wait till hurry should be at an end, but impatiently resigned it, and returned to his wonted indigence and amuse

ments.

ONE of his amusements at Lambeth, where he resided, was to mortify Dr Tenison, the archbishop, by a publick festivity, on the surrender of Dunkirk to Hill; an event with which Tenison's political bigotry did not suffer him to be delighted. King was resolved to counteract his sullenness, and at the expence of a few barrels of ale filled the neighbourhood with honest merriment.

In the autumn of 1712, his health declined; hé grew weaker by degrees, and died on Christmas-day. Though his life had not been without irregularity, his principles were pure and orthodox, and his death was pious.

AFTER this relation, it will be naturally supposed that his poems were rather the amusements of idleness than efforts of study; that he endeavoured rather to divert than astonish; that his thoughts seldom aspired to sublimity; and that, if his verse was easy and his images familiar, he attained what he de sired. His purpose is to be merry; but perhaps, to enjoy his mirth, it may be sometimes necessary to think well of his opinions. He

SPRAT.

THOMAS SPRAT was born in 1636, at Tallaton in Devonshire, the son of a clergyman; and having been educated, as he tells of himself, not at Westminster or Eton, but at a little school by the church-yard side, became a commoner of Wadham College in Oxford in 1651; and, being chosen scholar next year, proceeded through the usual academical course; and, in 1657, became Master 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 encomiast, both of the living and the dead. He implores his patron's excuse of his verses, both as falling so infinitely below the full and sublime genius of that excellent poet who made this way of writing free of our nation,' and being so little equal and proportioned to the renown of a prince on whom they were written; such great actions and lives deserving to be the subject of the noblest pens and most divine phansies.' He proceeds; Having so long experienced your care and indulgence, and been formed, as it were, by your own hands, not to entitle you to any thing which my meanness produces would be not only injustice, but sacrilege.'

6

HE published, the same year, a poem on the plague of Athens; a subject of which it is not easy

to say what could recommend it. To these he added afterwards a poem on Mr Cowley's death.

AFTER the Restoration he took orders, and by Cowley's recommendation was made chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham, whom he is said to have helped in writing the Rehearsal. He was likewise chaplain to the king.

As he was the favourite of Wilkins, at whose house began those philosophical conferences and inquiries which in time produced the Royal Society, he was consequently engaged in the same studies, and be came one of the fellows: and when, after their incorporation, something seemed necessary to reconcile the publick to the new institution, he undertook to write its history, which he published in 1667. This is one of the few books which selection of sentiment and elegance of diction have been able to preserve, though written upon a subject flux and transitory. The History of the Royal Society is now read, not with the wish to know what they were then doing, but how their transactions are exhibited by Sprat.d

In the next year he published Observations on Sørbiere's Voyage into England, in a Letter to Mr Wren. This is a work not ill-performed; but perhaps rewarded with at least its full proportion of praise.

IN 1668, he published Cowley's Latin poems, and prefixed, in Latin, the Life of the Author; which he afterwards amplified, and placed before Cowley's English works, which were by will committed to his

care.

ECCLESIASTICAL benefices now fell fast upon him. IN 1668, he became a prebendary of Westminster, and had afterwards the Church of St. Margaret, adjoining to the Abbey. He was, in 1680, made canon of Windsor; in 1683, dean of Westminster; and, in 1684, bishop of Rochester.

THE Court having thus a claim to his diligence and gratitude, he was required to write the History

of the Rye-house Plot; and, in 1685, published 4 true Account and Declaration of the horrid Conspiracy against the late King, his present Majesty, and the present Government; a performance which he thought convenient, after the Revolution, to extenuate and

excuse.

THE same year, being clerk of the closet to the king, he was made dean of the chapel-royal; and, the year afterwards, received the last proof of his master's confidence, by being appointed one of the commissioners for ecclesiastical affairs. On the critical day, when the Declaration distinguished the true sons of the Church of England, he stood neuter, and permitted it to be read at Westminster; but pressed none to violate his conscience; and, when the bishop of London was brought before them, gave his voice in his favour.

THUS far he suffered interest or obedience to carry him; but further he refused to go. When he found that the powers of the ecclesiastical commission were to be exercised against those who had refused the Declaration, he wrote to the Lords, and other commissioners, a formal profession of his unwillingness to exercise that authority any longer, and withdrew himself from them. After they had read his letter, they adjourned for six months, and scarcely ever met afterwards.

WHEN king James was frighted away, and a new government was to be settled, Sprat was one of those who considered, in a conference, the great question, Whether the crown was vacant? and manfully spoke in favour of his old master.

HE complied, however, with the new establishment, and was left unmolested; but, in 1692, a strange attack was made upon him by one Robert Young and Stephen Blackhead; both men convicted of infamous crimes, and both, when the scheme was laid, prisoners in Newgate. These men drew up an