After having shewn Shakespear’s boundless genius, he continues,

Then Johnson came instructed from the school To please by method, and invent by rule.  His studious patience, and laborious art With regular approach assay’d the heart; Cold approbation gave the ling’ring bays, For they who durst not censure, scarce could praise.

[Footnote 1:  Drummond of Hawthornden’s works, fol. 224.  Edinburgh Edition, 1711.]

[Footnote 2:  Birch’s Lives of Illustrious Men.]

[Footnote 3:  See Shakespear]

[Footnote 4:  See Drummond’s works.]

[Footnote 5:  Wood.]

[Footnote 6:  The Alchymist, the Fox, and the Silent Woman, have been oftner acted than all the rest of Ben Johnson’s plays put together; they have ever been generally deemed good stock-plays, and been performed to many crowded audiences, in several separate seasons, with universal applause.  Why the Silent Woman met not with success, when revived last year at Drury Lane Theatre, let the new critics, or the actors of the New Mode, determine.]

* * * * *

Thomas Carew, Esq;

Was descended of a very ancient and reputable family of the Carews in Devonshire, and was brother to Matthew Carews, a great royalist, in the time of the rebellion; he had his education in Corpus Christi College, but he appears not to have been matriculated as a member, or that he took a scholastic degree[1]; afterwards improving his parts by travelling, and conversation with ingenious men in the Metropolis, he acquired some reputation for his wit and poetry.  About this time being taken notice of at court for his ingenuity, he was made Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and Sewer in ordinary to King Charles I. who always esteemed him to the last, one of the most celebrated wits about his court[2].  He was much esteemed and respected by the poets of his time, especially by Ben Johnson.  Sir John Suckling, who had a great kindness for him, could not let him pass in his session of poets without this character,

  Tom Carew was next, but he had a fault,
  That would not well stand with a Laureat;
  His muse was hide-bound, and the issue of’s brain
  Was seldom brought forth, but with trouble and pain.

The works of our author are,

Poems; first printed in Octavo, and afterwards being revised and enlarged, there were several editions of them made, the third in 1654, and the fourth in 1670.  The songs in these poems were set to music, or as Wood expresses it, wedded to the charming notes of Mr. Henry Lawes, at that time the greatest musical composer in England, who was Gentleman of the King’s Chapel, and one of the private musicians to his Majesty.

Coelum Britannicum; A Mask at Whitehall in the Banquetting House, on Shrove Tuesday night February 18, 1633, London 1651.  This Masque is commonly attributed to Sir William Davenant.  It was performed by the King, the duke of Lenox, earls of Devonshire, Holland, Newport &c. with several other Lords and Noblemen’s Sons; he was assisted in the contrivance by Mr. Inigo Jones, the famous architect.  The Masque being written by the King’s express command, our author placed this distich in the front, when printed;