The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) eBook

Theodore Watts-Dunton
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 363 pages of information about The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753).

The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) eBook

Theodore Watts-Dunton
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 363 pages of information about The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753).
knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, and so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war, than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity.  He was a great cherisher of wit and fancy, and good parts in any man; and if he found them clouded with poverty and want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune.”  His lordship then enumerates the unshaken loyalty and great abilities of this young hero, in the warmth of a friend; he shews him in the most engaging light, and of all characters which in the course of this work we met with, except Sir Philip Sidney’s, lord Falkland’s seems to be the most amiable, and his virtues are confessed by his enemies of the opposite faction.  The noble historian, in his usual masterly manner, thus concludes his panegyric on his deceased friend.  “He fell in the 34th year of his age, having so much dispatched the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter into the world with more innocency:  whosoever leads such a life, needs be less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him.”——­As to his person, he was little, and of no great strength; his hair was blackish, and somewhat flaggy, and his eyes black and lively.  His body was buried in the church of Great Tew.  His works are chiefly these: 

First Poems.——­Next, besides those Speeches of his mentioned above,

1.  A Speech concerning Uniformity, which we are informed of by Wood.

2.  A Speech of ill Counsellors about the King, 1640 [6].

A Draught of a Speech concerning Episcopacy, London, 1660, 410.

4.  A Discourse of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome.  Oxford 1645, 410.  George Holland, a Cambridge scholar, and afterwards a Romish priest, having written an answer to this discourse of the Infallibility, the Lord Falkland made a reply to it, entitled,

5.  A View of some Exceptions made against the Discourse of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome, printed at Oxford, 1646, 410.  He assisted Mr. Chillingworth in his book of the Religion of the Protestants, &c.  This particular we learn from Bishop Barlow in his Genuine Remains, who says, that when Mr. Chillingworth undertook the defence of Dr. Pottus’s book against the Jesuit, he was almost continually at Tew with my Lord, examining the reasons of both parties pro and con; and their invalidity and consequence; where Mr. Chillingworth had the benefit of my Lord’s company, and of his good library.

We shall present our readers with a specimen of his lordship’s poetry, in a copy of verses addressed to Grotius on his Christus Patiens, a tragedy, translated by Mr. Sandys.  To the author.

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The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.