These are ascribed to the Earl of Rochester, who was unexceptionably a great wit.  They are not otherwise materially altered, than by the transposure of the rhimes in the first couplet, and the retrenchment of the measure in both.  As the sphere in which this author moved was of the middle sort, neither raised to such eminence as to incur danger, nor so deprest with poverty as to be subject to meanness, his life seems to have flowed with great tranquility; nor are there any of those vicissitudes and distresses which have so frequently fallen to the lot of the inspired tribe.  He was honoured with the patronage of men of worth, tho’ not of the highest stations; and that author cannot be called a mean one, on whom so great a man as Selden (in many respects the most finished scholar that ever appeared in our nation) was pleased to animadvert.  His genius seems to have been of the second rate, much beneath Spencer and Sidney, Shakespear and Johnson, but highly removed above the ordinary run of versifyers.  We shall quote a few lines from his Poly-olbion as a specimen of his poetry.

When he speaks of his native county, Warwickshire, he has the following lines;

  Upon the mid-lands now, th’ industrious Muse doth fall,
  That shire which we the heart of England well may call,
  As she herself extends the midst (which is decreed)
  Betwixt St. Michael’s Mount, and Berwick bordering Tweed,
  Brave Warwick, that abroad so long advanc’d her Bear,
  By her illustrious Earls, renowned every where,
  Above her neighbr’ing shires which always bore her head.

[Footnote 1:  Burton’s Description of Leicestershire, p. 16, 22]

* * * * *

Dr. Richard Corbet, Bishop of Norwich,

Was son of Mr. Vincent Corbet, and born at Ewelb in Surry, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.  He was educated at Westminster school, and from thence was sent to Oxford, 1597, where he was admitted a student in Christ-church.  In 1605, being then esteemed one of the greatest wits of the University, he took the degree of Master of Arts, and afterwards entering into holy orders, he became a popular preacher, and much admired by people of taste and learning.  His shining wit, and remarkable eloquence recommended him to King James I, who made him one of his chaplains in ordinary, and in 1620 promoted him to the deanery of Christ’s-church; about which time he was made doctor of divinity, vicar of Cassington, near Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, and prebendary of Bedminster-secunda, in the church of Sarum.[1]