How now presumptuous Lad, think st thou that we
  Will be disturb’d with this thy Infancy
  Of Wit?—­
  Or does thy amorous Thoughts beget a flame,
  (Beyond its merit) for to court the name
  Of Poet; or is’t common row a days
  Such slender Wits dare claim such things as Bays? _&c._

* * * * *

THOMAS JORDEN.

Contemporary with him was Thomas Jorden, and of much like equal Fame; indulging his Muse more to vulgar Fancies, then to the high flying wits of those times, yet did he write three Plays, viz. Mony’s an Ass; and The Walks of Islington and Hogsden, Comedies; and Fancys Festivals, a Mask.

* * * * *

HUGH CROMPTON.

He was born a Gentleman, and bred up a Scholar, but his Father not leaving him Means enough to support the one, and the Times in that Condition, that without Money Learning is little regarded; he therefore betook him to a Gentile Employment, which his Learning had made him capable to do; but the succession of a worse fate disemploying him, as he himself saith in his Epistle to the Reader of his Book, entituled, Pierides, or the Muses Mount, he betook him to his Pen, (that Idleness might not sway) which in time produced a Volume of Poems, which to give you a tast of the briskness of his Muse, I shall instance in a few lines, in one or two of them.

  When I remember what mine eyes have seen,
    And what mine Ears have heard,
  Concerning Muses too young and green;
    And how they have been jear’d,
    T’ expose my own I am afear’d.

  And yet this fear decreases, when I call
    To my tempestuous mind,
  How the strong loins of Phoebus Children all,
    Have faln by Censures mind: 
  And in their road what Rocks they find.

He went over afterwards into Ireland, where he continued for some time; but whether he dyed there or no, I am not certain.

* * * * *

EDMUND PRESTWICH.

Edmund Prestwich, was one who deservedly cometh in as a Member of the Noble Society of Poets, being the Author of an ingenious Comedy called the Hectors, or False Challenge; as also Hippolytus a Tragedy; what ever he might have written besides, which may not have come to my knowledge.

* * * * *

PAGAN FISHER.

Paganus Piscator, vulgarly Fisher, was a notable Undertaker in Latin Verse, and had well deserved of his Country, had not lucre of Gain and private Ambition over-swayed his Pen, to favour successful Rebellion.  He wrote in Latin his Marston-Moor; A Gratulatory Ode of Peace; Englished afterwards by Thomas Manley, and other Latin pieces, besides English ones, not a few, which (as we said) might have