THIRSIS.

    Damon this evening carries home his bride,
  In all the harmless pomp of rural pride: 
  Where, for two spotted lambkins, newly yean’d,
  With nimble feet and voice, the nymphs contend: 
  And for a coat, thy Galatea spun,
  The Shepherds wrestle, throw the bar, and run.

Strephon.

    At that dear name I feel my heart rebound,
  Like the old steed, at the fierce trumpet’s sound;
  I grow impatient of the least delay,
  No bastard swain shall bear the prize away.

THIRSIS.

    Let us make haste, already they are met;
  The echoing hills their joyful shouts repeat.

* * * * *

JOHN CROWNE

Was the son of an independent minister, in that part of North America, which is called Nova Scotia.  The vivacity of his genius made him soon grow impatient of the gloomy education he received in that country; which he therefore quitted in order to seek his fortune in England; but it was his fate, upon his first arrival here, to engage in an employment more formal, if possible, than his American education.  Mr. Dennis, in his Letters, vol. i. p. 48, has given us the best account of this poet, and upon his authority the above, and the succeeding circumstances are related.  His necessity, when he first arrived in England, was extremely urgent, and he was obliged to become a gentleman usher to an old independent lady; but he soon grew as weary of that precise office, as he had done before of the discipline of Nova Scotia.  One would imagine that an education, such as this, would be but an indifferent preparative for a man to become a polite author, but such is the irresistable force of genius, that neither this, nor his poverty, which was very deplorable, could suppress his ambition:  aspiring to reputation, and distinction, rather than to fortune and power.  His writings soon made him known to the court and town, yet it was neither to the savour of the court, nor to that of the earl of Rochester, that he was indebted to the nomination the king made of him, for the writing the Masque of Calypso, but to the malice of that noble lord, who designed by that preference to mortify Mr. Dryden.

Upon the breaking out of the two parties, after the pretended discovery of the Popish plot, the favour he was in at court, and the gaiety of his temper, which inclined him to join with the fashion, engaged him to embrace the Tory party.  About that time he wrote the City Politicks, in order to satirize and expose the Whigs:  a comedy not without wit and spirit, and which has obtained the approbation of those of contrary principles, which is the highest evidence of merit; but after it was ready for the stage, he met with great embarrassments in getting it acted.  Bennet lord Arlington (who was then lord chamberlain, was secretly in the cause of the Whigs, who were at that time potent in Parliament,