vines in masquerade. Anonymi anonymorum -an endless train. Tippling-philosophers, potvaliant-freethinkers, who arraign all order, and labour to make the sober part of mankind, as enlightened in the important points of liberty, as they themselves are-when in their cups. Certainly, newspapers, by this time, ought to be reckoned among the staple commodities of this country. What an advantage to the community!-- What a benefit to the state! and procured at so easy. a rate, as distracting the heads of the whole nation. 'LINES ON SIR GEORGE SAVILLE. He, who by rules of moral justice moves, His God, his neighbour, King, and country loves; And to distress, still bends a lenient ear; Tho' rocks should rend, and thunders round him roll, And forked light'nings blaze from pole to pole; Unmov'd he sees conflicting meteors fly, And looks undaunted on the raging sky. Memoirs of Sir William Davenant, PoetLaureat, to King Charles the First. -- To this gentleman, whose variegated life we are about to relate, the English stage, perhaps, stands more indebted, than to any other writer of this nation, with respect to the refinement of poetry, and his zealous application, to the promoting and contributing towards those rational pleasures, which are the fittest for the entertainment of a civilized people. And the greater should his merit be esteemed in this particular, since not only the important affairs of the state, whose necessities demanded his assistance, and of which, he was no inactive member, at a period of great confusion and perplexity, but even confinement, and the prospect of death itself, were insufficient to abate his ardour, or lessen his diligence in the cause of his darling mistresses, the Muses: for it is recorded of him, that when he was a ... prisoner in Cowes castle, and on a pretty near certainty, (according to his own ex pression,) of being hanged within a week. He still pursued the composition of his celebrated poem of Gondibert; and even was master enough of his temper and abilities, to write a letter to his friend Hobbes, give ing some account of the progress he had made in it; and offering some criticisms on the nature of that kind of poetry. Our author, was younger son of Mr. John D'Avenant, who was a citizen of Oxford, being a very substantial vintner, and keeping a large tavern, afterwards known by the name of the crown, in that city, where, in 1621, he attained to the honour of being elected mayor. This son was born at Oxford, in February, 1605; and very early in life, gave tokens of a lively and promising genius. He received the rudiments of grammatical learn ing from Mr. Edward Sylvester, who kept a school in the parish of All-Saints, Oxford; and in the year 1621, being that of his father's mayoralty, he was entered a member of Lincoln-College, in that university, in order to complete his academical studies, VOL I. under Mr. Daniel Hough. Here, however, he took no degree; nor, according to Wood's opinion, made any long residence. That writer, absolutely informing us, (at the same time that he acknowledges the strength of his genius; and even distinguishes him by the title of Sweet Swan of Isis,) that he was, nevertheless, considerably deficient in university learning. On his quitting the university, he became one in the retinue of the magnificently disposed Frances Duchess of Richmond, out of whose family he removed, into that of the celebrated Sir Folke Greville, Lord Brook:-but after the unhappy death of that nobleman, in 1628, being then left without a patron, although not in distressed circumstances, it is probable, that views of profit, as well as amusement, might induce him to an exertion of his genius, as he, in the ensuing year, produced his first play called, Albovine, King of the Lombards, which met with great success. For the eight succeeding years, he passed his time in the service of the Muses, and a constant attendance at court, where he was much caressed by all the great wits; among whom, we find him in the closest intimacy with the Earl of Dorset, Lord Treasurer Weston, and the accomplished Endymion Porter. In consequence of this extensive personal interest, and the peculiar patronage of the Queen, he was, in the year 1637, promoted to the Laureat, which was vacant by the death of Ben Johnson, and for which Thomas May stood as his competitor. In the life of that poet, the reader will find related the resentment he shewed on the loss of this election; and it will equally appear in the course of this gentleman's history, with what ardent gratitude and unshaken zeal for the cause of the Royal Family, he repaid this mark of their esteem for him ; for as soon as the civil war broke out, he demonstrated his loyalty to the King, not only in word but action. In May 1641, he was accused by the parliament of being concerned in a design |