that the world has lost many excellent works, which no doubt this cultivated genius would have accomplished, had he been less involved in court-affairs:  but as he acted in so public a sphere, and discharged every office with inviolable honour, and consummate prudence, it is perhaps somewhat selfish in the lovers of poetry, to wish he had wrote more, and acted less.  From him is descended the present noble family of the Dorsets; and it is remarkable, that all the descendants of this great man have inherited his taste for liberal arts and sciences, as well as his capacity for public business.  An heir of his was the friend and patron of Dryden, and is stiled by Congreve the monarch of wit in his time, and the present age is happy in his illustrious posterity, rivalling for deeds of honour and renown the most famous of their ancestors.

* * * * *

Induction to the mirror Of magistrates.

  The wrathful winter hast’ning on apace,
  With blustring blasts had all ybard the treene,
  And old Saturnus with his frosty face
  With chilling cold had pearst the tender greene: 
  The mantles rent, wherein enwrapped been,
  The gladsome groves, that now lay overthrown,
  The tapets torn, and every tree down blown.

The soil that erst so seemly was to seen, Was all despoiled of her beauteous hew, And soote fresh flowers wherewith the summers queen, Had clad the earth, new Boreas blasts down blew And small fowls flocking in their songs did rew The winter’s wrath, wherewith each thing defaste, In woeful wise bewailed the summer past.

[Footnote 1:  Fuller’s Worthies, p.105]

[Footnote 2:  Wood Ath.  Qx. praed.]

[Footnote 3:  Collins’s peerage, 519.]

[Footnote 4:  Ib. 519.]

[Footnote 5:  Rapin’s History of England, p. 437.]

[Footnote 6:  This nobleman suffered death for a plot to recover the liberty of the Queen of Scots.]

[Footnote 7:  Rapin’s History of England, vol ii. p. 617.]

[Footnote 8:  Rapin’a History of England, vol. ii. p. 630.]

[Footnote 9:  Chron. 2d edit. p. 596.]

* * * * *

THOMAS CHURCHYARD,

One of the assistants in the Mirror of Magistrates.  He was born in the town of Shrewsbury[1] as himself affirms in his book made in verse of the Worthiness of Wales.  He was equally addicted to arts and arms; he had a liberal education, and inherited some fortune, real and personal; but he soon exhausted it, in a tedious and unfruitful attendance at court, for he gained no other equivalent for that mortifying dependance, but the honour of being retained a domestic in the family of lord Surry:  during which time by his lordship’s encouragement he commenced poet.  Upon his master’s death he betook himself to arms; was in many engagements, and was frequently