wounded; he was twice a prisoner, and redeemed by the charity of two noble ladies, yet still languishing in distress, and bitterly complaining of fortune.  Neither of his employments afforded him a patron, who would do justice to his obscure merit; and unluckily he was as unhappy in his amours as in his circumstances, some of his mistresses treating his addresses with contempt, perhaps, on account of his poverty; for tho’ it generally happens that Poets have the greatest power in courtship, as they can celebrate their mistresses with more elegance than people of any other profession; yet it very seldom falls out that they marry successfully, as their needy circumstances naturally deter them from making advances to Ladies of such fashion as their genius and manners give them a right to address.  This proved our author’s case exactly; he made love to a widow named Browning, who possessed a very good jointure; but this lady being more in love with money than laurels, with wealth than merit, rejected his suit; which not a little discouraged him, as he had spent his money in hopes of effecting this match, which, to his great mortification, all his rhimes and sonnets could not do.  He dedicated his vorks to Sir Christopher Hatton; but addresses of that nature don’t always imply a provision for their author.  It is conjectured that he died about the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth, and according to Mr. Wood was buried near Skelton in the Chancel of St. Margaret’s, Westminster.  By his writings, he appears a man of sense, and sometimes a poet, tho’ he does not seem to possess any degree of invention.  His language is generally pure, and his numbers not wholly inharmonious.  The Legend of Jane Shore is the most finished of all his works, from which I have taken a quotation.  His death, according to the most probable conjecture, happened in 1570.  Thus like a stone (says Winstanley) did he trundle about, but never gathered any moss, dying but poor, as may be seen by his epitaph in Mr. Camden’s Remains, which runs thus: 

  Come Alecto, lend me thy torch
  To find a Church-yard in a Church-porch;
  Poverty and poetry his tomb doth enclose,
  Wherefore good neighbours, be merry in prose.

His works according to Winstanley are as follow: 

The Siege of Leith.

A Farewell to the world.

A feigned Fancy of the Spider and the Gaul.

A doleful Discourse of a Lady and a Knight.

The Road into Scotland, by Sir William Drury.

Sir Simon Burley’s Tragedy.

A lamentable Description of the Wars in Flanders in prose, and dedicated to Walsingham secretary of state.

A light Bundle of lively Discourses, called Churchyard’s Charge 1580, dedicated to his noble patron the Earl of Surry.

A Spark of Friendship, a treatise on that writer, address’d to Sir
Walter Raleigh.

A Description and Discourse on the use of paper, in which he praises a paper-mill built near Darthsend, by a German called Spillman.