While freezing Matho, that for one lean fee The fecond fatire lashes the incongruity of stately buildings and want of hofpitality, and naturally reminds us of a pleafant epigram of Martial's on the fame occafion, where after defcribing the magnificence of a villa, he concludes however, there is no room either to fup er lodge, in it. It ends with a tranfition on the contumely with which the parafites are treated at the tables of the great; being a pretty clofe imitation of Juvenal on the fame fubject. This fatire has alfo a few skabbarded initials. In his third, titled, KOINA IASIN, where he reprehends Plato's notion of a political community.of all things, are the following lines: Plato is dead, and dead is his device, Which fome thought witty, none thought ever wife : Yet certes Macha is a Platonift To all, they fay, fave whofo do not list; His last book and fatire, for it confifts but of one, is a humorous ironical recantation of his former fatires ; as the author pretends there can be no just one in fuch perfect times as his own. The latter part of it alludes to different paffages in Juvenal ; and he particularly reflects on fome poetafter he calls Labeo, whom he had repeatedly lash'd before; and who was not improbably fome cotemporary fcribler. Upon the whole, thefe fatires fufficiently evince both the learning and ingenuity of their author. The The fenfe has generally fuch a fufficient paufe, and will admit of fuch a punctuation at the close of the fecond line, and the verfe is very often as harmonious too, as if it was calculated for a modern ear: tho' the great number of obfolete words retained would incline us to think the editors had not procured any very extraordinary alteration of the original edition, which we have never feen. The prefent one is nearly printed; and, if it fhould occafion another, we cannot think but a fhort gloffary at the end of it, or explanations at the bottom of the pages, where the most uncouth and antiquated terms occur, would justly increase the value of it, by adding confiderably to the perfpicuity of this writer; who, in other refpects, feems to have been a learned divine, a confcientious christian, a lover of peace, and well endued with patience; for the exercife of which virtue, the confufions at the latter end of his life, about the time of the death of Charles I. furnished him with frequent opportunities, the account of his own hard measures being dated in May 1647. We have met with no other poetical writings of the bishop's, except three anthems, compofed for the ufe of his cathedral-church, and indeed, it feems as if his continual occupation after his youth, and his troubles in age, were fufficient to fupprefs any future propensity to fatirical poetry which we may infer from the conclufion of the firft fatire of his fourth book. While now my rhimes relish of the ferule ftill, skill Hath three times conftrued either Flaccus o'er, RICHARD CRASHAW. ON of an eminent divine named William Crafhaw, was educated in grammar learning in Sutton's-Hofpital called the Charter-Houfe, near London, and in academical, partly in Pembroke-Hall, of which he was a fcholar, and afterwards in Peterhouse, Cambridge, of which he was a fellow, where, as in the former house, he was diftinguished for his Latin and English poetry. Afterwards he took the degree of master of arts; but being foon after thrown out of his fellowthip, with many others of the University of Cambridge, for denying the Covenant during the time of the rebellion, he was for a time obliged to fhift for himself, and ftruggle againft want and oppreffion. At length being wearied with perfecution and poverty, and foreseeing the calamity which threatened and afterwards fell upon his church and country, by the unbounded fury of the Prefbyterians, he changed his religion, and went beyond fea, in order to recommend himself to fome Popish preferment in Paris; but being a mere fcholar was incapable of executing his new plan of a livelihood. Mr. Abraham Cowley hearing of his being there, endeavoured to find him out, which he did, and to his great furprize faw him in a very miferable plight: this happened in the year 1646. This generous bard gave him all the affiftance he could, and obtained likewife fome relief for him from Henrietta Maria the Queen Dowager, then refiding at Paris. Our author receiving letters of recommendation from his Queen, he took a journey into Italy, and by virtue virtue of those letters became a fecretary to a Cardinal at Rome, and at length one of the canons or chaplains of the rich church of our lady of Loretto, fome miles diftant from thence, where he died in 1650. This conduct of Crashaw can by no means be juftified when a man changes one religion for another, he ought to do it at a time when no motive of intereft can well be fupposed to have produced it; for it does no honour to religion, nor to the perfon who becomes a convert, when it is evident, he would not have altered his opinion, had not his party been fuffering; and what would have become of the church of England, what of the Proteftant religion, what of chriftianity in general, had the apoftles and primitive martyrs, and later champions for truth, meanly abandoned it like Crahaw, because the hand of power was lifted up against it. It is an old obfervation, that the blood of the martyrs is the feed of the church; but Crafhaw took care that the church fhould reap no benefit by his perfeverance. Before he left England he wrote poems, entitled, Steps to the Temple; and Wood fays, "That he led his life in St. Mary's church near to Peterhouse, where he lodged under Tertullian's "roof of angels; there he made his neft more glad than David's swallow near the house of "God, where like a primitive faint he offered 66 more prayers in the night than others ufually "offer in the day. There he pen'd the poems "called Steps to the Temple for Happy Souls to "climb to Heaven by. To the faid Steps are 66 joined other poems, entitled, The Delights of "the Mufes, wherein are feveral Latin poems; "which tho' of a more humane mixture, yet are "sweet as they are innocent. He hath also writ"ten Carmen Deo Noftro, being Hymns and o"ther facred Poems, addreffed to the Countess of "Denbigh. Denbigh. He is faid to have been mafter of five "languages, befides his mother, tongue, viz. He"brew, Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish." Mr. Crafhaw feems to have been a very deli cate and chafte writer; his language is pure, his thoughts natural, and his manner of writing tender. WILLIAM ROWLEY, N author who lived in the reign of Charles broke-Hall in Cambridge. There are no particulars on record concerning this poet. He was te. loved, fays Langbaine, by Shakespear, Johnfon, and Fletcher, and writ with the former the Britifh Merlin, befides what he joined in writing with poets of the third clafs, as Heywood, Middleton, Day, and Webfter. The author has fix plays in print of his own writing, which are as follows; 1. A New Wonder, a Woman never vext, a Comedy, acted Anno 1632. The Widow's finding her wedding Ring (which the dropt croffing the Thames) in the Belly of a Fith, is taken from the Story of Polycrates, in the Thalia of Herodotus. z. A Match at Midnight, a Comedy, acted by the Children of the Revels, 1633. Part of the Plot is taken from a Story in the English Rogue, Part the fourth. 3. All's loft by Luft, a Tragedy, acted at the Phoenix in Drury-lane by the Lady Elizabeth's Servar.ts, |