JOHN MILTON.

John Milton was one, whose natural parts might deservedly give him a place amongst the principal of our English Poets, having written two Heroick Poems and a Tragedy; namely, Paradice Lost, Paradice Regain’d, and Sampson Agonista; But his Fame is gone out like a Candle in a Snuff, and his Memory will always stink, which might have ever lived in honourable Repute, had not he been a notorious Traytor, and most impiously and villanously bely’d that blessed Martyr King Charles the First.

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JOHN OGILBY.

John Ogilby was one, who from a late Initiation into Literature, made such a Progress therein, as might well stile him to be the Prodigy of his time, sending into the world so many large and learned Volumes, as well in Verse as in Prose, as will make posterity much indebted to his Memory.  His Volumes in Prose were his Atlas, and other Geographical Works, which gained him the Style and Office of the King’s Cosmographer.  In Verse his Translations of Homer and Virgil, done to the Life, and adorned with most excellent Sculptures; but above all, as composed Propria Minerva; his Paraphrase upon AEsop’s Fables, which for Ingenuity and Fancy, besides the Invention of new Fables, is generally confest to have exceeded what ever hath been done before in that kind.  He also set forth King Charles the Second his Entertainment through London, when he went to his Coronation, with most admirable Cuts of the several Pageants as he passed through, and Explanations upon them.  And that which added a great grace to his Works, he printed them all on special good Paper, and had them printed on very good Letter.

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Sir RICHARD FANSHAW.

This worthy Gentleman, one of Apollo’s chiefest Sons, was Secretary to King Charles the Second, when Prince of Wales, and after his Restoration, his Embassadour to Spain, where he died.  His Employments were such, as one would think he should have had no time for Poetical Diversions, yet at leisure times he Translated Guarini’s Pastor Fido into English Verse, and Spencer’s Shepherds Callendar into Latin Verse.

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ROGER BOILE, Lord Broghil, Earl of Orrery.

This Noble Person, the credit of the Irish Nobility for Wit and ingenious Parts, and who had the command of a smooth Stile, both in Prose and Verse; in which last he hath written several Dramatick Histories, as Mustapha, Edward the Third, Henry the Fifth, and Tryphon, all of them with good success and applause, as writing after the French way of Rhyme, now of late very much in Fashion.

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THOMAS HOBBS of Malmsbury.