The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume IV.

The duke made little stay at Paris, but proceeded to Rouen in his way, as some imagined, to England; but there he stopt, and took up his residence, without reflecting in the lea...

8. Upon Religious Solitude; occasioned by reading the Inscription on the Tomb of Casimir King of Poland, who abdicated his Crown, and spent the remainder of his life in the Abbe...

Mr. Oldmixon, in a Prose Essay on Criticism, unjustly censures Mr. Addison, whom also, in his imitation of Bouhour's Arts of Logic and Rhetoric, he misrepresents in plain matter...

We shall now take a view of our author in the light of a dramatist. In the year 1697 a comedy of his was acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, called A Plot and No Plot, ded...

I can bear my straits with patience; but my lord treasurer does protest to me, that the revenue, as it now stands, will not serve him and me too. One of us must suffer for it, i...

The poor lady suffered on this occasion a great deal of inward anguish; she was ashamed of having reduced her fortune, and impoverished her child by listening to the insinuation...

The first prelude to his misfortunes, may justly be reckoned his falling in love, and privately marrying a young lady, the daughter of major general Holmes; a match by no means...

Mr. Voltaire upon this occasion observes, that he was not a little disgusted with so unseasonable a piece of vanity:--This was indeed the highest instance of it, that perhaps ca...

This play took birth from principles of truth, To make amends for errors past, of youth. A bard that's now no more, in riper days, Conscious review'd the licence of his plays: A...

Mr. Dennis had once contracted a friendship[B] with Sir Richard Steele, whom he afterwards severely attacked. Sir Richard had promised that he would take some opportunity of men...

Mr. De Foe, who possessed a resolute temper, and a most confirmed fortitude of mind, was never awed by the threats of power, nor deterred from speaking truth by the insolence of...

He passed through the exercises of the college, and the university, with unusual applause; and tho' he often suffered his friends to call him off from his retirement; yet his re...

Having given this short account of his life, which perhaps is all that is preserved any where concerning him; we shall now consider him, first, as a poet, and then as a prose wr...

The same year also his Tragedy, intitled Heroic Love, was acted at the Theatre. Mr. Gildon observes, 'that this Tragedy is written after the manner of the antients, which is muc...

Motteux Manley Mrs. Needler Hughes Prior Centlivre Mrs. Brady Stepney Pack Dawes Arch. York Congreve Vanbrugh Steele Marvel Thomas Mrs. Fenton Booth Sewel Hammond Eusden Eachard...

Her virtue was now nodding, and she was ready to fall into the arms of any gallant, like mellow fruit, without much trouble in the gathering. Sir Thomas Skipwith, a character of...

'This behaviour so incensed Herod, that he very hardly refrained from striking her; when in the heat of their quarrel, there came in a witness, suborned by some of Mariamne's en...

During the few years they lived together, there was the greatest harmony between them, and after the death of Booth, his disconsolate widow, who is yet alive, quitted the stage,...

This part of the Ode which we have quoted, contains the most tender breathings of affection, and has as much delicacy and softness in it, as we remember ever to have seen in poe...

The duke of Wharton seems to have lived as if the world should be new modelled for him; for he would conform to none of the rules, by which the little happiness the world can yi...

This revd. gentleman was son of Nicholas Brady, an officer in the King's army, in the rebellion 1641, being lineally descended from Hugh Brady, the first Protestant bishop of Mi...

Some Jesuits with whom he familiarly conversed, observing in him a genius beyond his years, used their utmost efforts to proselyte him to their faith, which they imagined they c...

In the year 1697 Mr. Prior was made secretary of state for Ireland, and in 1700 was created master of arts by Mandamus, and appointed one of the lords commissioners of trade and...

There was likewise a poem of Mr. Mitchel's, called The Shoe-heel, which was much read on account of the low humour it contains. He has addressed to Dr. Watts a poem on the subje...