and set up for himself; but being afterwards appointed to dance in the duke of Buckingham’s great Masque, by a false step, he strained a vein in the inside of his leg, which ever after occasioned him to halt.  He afterwards taught dancing to the sisters of Sir Ralph Hopton, at Wytham in Somersetshire, where, at leisure, he learned to handle the pike and musket.  When Thomas earl of Strafford became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he was retained in his family to teach the art of dancing, and being an excellent penman, he was frequently employed by the earl to transcribe papers for him.

In his lordship’s family it was that he first gave proofs of his inclination to poetry, by translating some of AEsop’s Fables into English verse, which he communicated to some learned men, who understood Latin better than he, by whose assistance and advice he published them.  He was one of the troop of guards belonging to the earl, and composed an humourous piece entitled the Character of a Trooper.  About the time he was supported by his lordship, he was made master of the revels for the kingdom of Ireland, and built a little theatre for the representation of dramatic entertainments, in St. Warburgh’s street in Dublin:  but upon the breaking out of the rebellion in that kingdom, he was several times in great danger of his life, particularly when he narrowly escaped being blown up in the castle of Rathfarnam.  About the time of the conclusion of the war in England, he left Ireland, and being shipwrecked, came to London in a very necessitous condition.  After he had made a short stay in the metropolis, he travelled on foot to Cambridge, where his great industry, and love of learning, recommended him to the notice of several scholars, by whose assistance he became so compleat a master of the Latin tongue, that in 1646 he published an English translation of Virgil, which was printed in large 8vo. and dedicated to William marquis of Hereford.  He reprinted it at London 1654 in fol. with this title; The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro, translated and adorned with Sculptures, and illustrated with Annotations; which, Mr. Wood tells us, was the fairest edition, that till then, the English press ever produced.  About the year 1654 our indefatigable author learned the Greek language, and in four year’s time published in fol. a translation of Homer’s Iliad, adorned with excellent sculptures, illustrated with Annotations, and addressed to King Charles ii.  The same year he published the Bible in a large fol. at Cambridge, according to the translation set forth by the special command of King James I. with the Liturgy and Articles of the Church of England, with Chorographical Sculptures.  About the year 1662 he went into Ireland, then having obtained a patent to be made master of the revels there, a place which Sir William Davenant sollicited in vain.  Upon this occasion he built a theatre at Dublin, which cost him 2000 l. the former being ruined during the troubles.  In 1664 he published in London, in