My business is only with his poems. He considered Cowley as a model; and supposed that, as he was imitated, perfection was approached. Nothing therefore but Pindaric liberty was to be expected. There is in his few productions no want of such conceits as he thought excellent; and of those our judgment may be settled by the first that appears in his praise of Cromwell, where he says that Cromwell's “fame, like man, will grow white as it grows old.'

whatever was least commendable in Cowley's manner; but those who are acquainted with Sprat's prose writings will form a very different estimate of his powers. He was, indeed, a very great master of our language; and possessed at once the eloquence of the orator, of the controversialist, and of the historian. His moral character might have passed with little censure, had he belonged to a less sacred profession; for the worst that can be said of him is that he was indolent, luxurious, and worldly; but such failings, though not commonly regarded as very heinous in men of secular callings, are scandalous in a prelate. The archbishopric of York was vacant, Sprat hoped to obtain it, and therefore accepted a seat at the Ecclesiastical Board; but he was too goodnatured a man to behave harshly; and he was too sensible a man not to know that he might at some future time be called to serious account by a Parliament. He therefore, though he consented to act, tried to do as little mischief, and to make as few enemies, as possible.-MACAULAY: History of England, vol. ii. p. 95, ninth edition.

I gather from an entry in Harl. MS. 7006, fol. 165b, that Sprat's papers were in Mr. Selwin's hands. Who was Mr. Selwin, and where are the papers? Above all, where are Cowley's letters, which his taste appreciated, but his fastidiousness prevented him from publishing?

EARL OF HALIFAX.

HALIFAX.

1661-1715.

Born at Horton, in Northamptonshire Educated at Westminster and Cambridge - His Poem on Charles II.'s death Joins with Prior in "The Country Mouse and City Mouse '-Introduced to William III. — His several Offices Made Chancellor of the Exchequer and Earl of Halifax His Patronage of Poets Burial in Westminster Abbey.

THE Life of the Earl of Halifax was properly that of an artful and active statesman, employed in balancing parties, contriving expedients, and combating opposition, and exposed to the vicissitudes of advancement and degradation; but, in this collection, poetical merit is the claim to attention; and the account which is here to be expected may properly be proportioned not to his influence in the state, but to his rank among the writers of verse.1

Charles Montague was born April 16, 1661, at Horton, in Northamptonshire, the son of Mr. George Montague, a younger son of the Earl of Manchester. He was educated first in the country, and then removed to Westminster, where, in 1677, he was chosen a King's scholar, and recommended himself to Busby by his felicity in extemporary epigrams. He contracted a very intimate friendship with Mr. Stepney; and in 1682, when Stepney was elected at Cambridge, the election of Montague being not to proceed till the year following, he was afraid lest by being placed at Oxford he might be separated from his companion, and therefore solicited to be removed to Cambridge, without waiting for the advantages of another year.

Of the fifty poets whose lives Johnson has written, Montague and Prior were the only two who were distinguished by an intimate knowledge of trade and finance.-MACAULAY: History of England, ii. 200, 9th ed.

2 Henry, first Earl of Manchester. The parish register of St. Margaret's, Westminster, contains the entry of the poet's baptism under 12th May, 1661.

VOL. II.

G

It seems indeed time to wish for a removal; for he was already a school-boy of one-and-twenty.

His relation, Dr. Montague, was then master of the college in which he was placed a fellow-commoner, and took him under his particular care. Here he commenced an acquaintance with the great Newton, which continued through his life, and was at last attested by a legacy.3

In 1685 his verses on the death of King Charles made such impression on the Earl of Dorset, that he was invited to town, and introduced by that universal patron to the other wits. In 1687 he joined with Prior in the Country Mouse and the City Mouse,' a burlesque of Dryden's Hind and Panther.' He signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, and sat in the Convention. He about the same time married the Countess Dowager of Manchester, and intended to have taken orders; but afterwards altering his purpose, he purchased for 15007. the place of one of the clerks of the council.

5

After he had written his epistle on the victory of the Boyne," his patron Dorset introduced him to King William with this expression: "Sir, I have brought a mouse to wait on your Majesty." To which the King is said to have replied, “You do well to put me in the way of making a man of him ;" and ordered him a pension of 500l. This story, however current, seems to have been made after the event. The King's answer implies a greater acquaintance with our proverbial

3 I am sorry to add that he lived with Newton's niece, Mrs. Catherine Barton, a great toast, after Halifax's death married to Mr. Conduit, Newton's successor as Master of the Mint. She died in 1739, and is pleasantly perpetuated in Swift's 'Journal to Stella.' She is amply and affectionately remembered in Halifax's will.

• Compare Johnson, in Dryden's Life, vol. i. p. 313.

5 Anne Yelverton, daughter of Sir Christopher Yelverton, of Easton Mauduit, in Northamptonshire, and widow of the third Earl of Manchester, who died in 1682, The Countess died in July, 1698, in the heat of a contested Westminster election, at which, however, her husband was returned at the head of the poll, (See 'Vernon Correspondence,' ii. 140.) Her son by the third Earl of Manchester was the first Duke of Manchester.

6 An Epistle to the Right Honourable Charles Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, Lord Chamberlain of His Majesty's Household, occasioned by His Majesty's victory in Ireland.' London: F. Saunders. 1690, fol. A second edition, in folio, same year.