THE GARDEN PLOT. 1709. WHEN Naboth's vineyard look'd so fine, A king, and weep! The ground's your own: EPISTLE TO MR. GODDARD'; WRITTEN BY DR. KING, IN THE CHARACTER OF THE REVIEW. To Windsor Canon, his well-chosen friend, The just Review does kindest greeting send, I've found the man by Nature's gift design'd To please my ear and captivate my mind, By sympathy the eager passions move, And strike my soul with wonder and with love! Happy that place, where much less care is had To save the virtuous, than protect the bad; Taken from an admirable banter of our author's, entituled, Two Friendly Letters from honest Tom Boggy, to the rev. Mr. Goddard, Canon of Windsor, very proper to be tacked to the canon's sermon; first printed in 8vo, 1710. This sermon (full of high treason against high-church, hereditary right, and Sacheverell) was entituled, The Guilt, Mischief, and Aggravation of Censure; set forth in a Sermon preached in St. George's Chapel within her Majesty's Castle of Windsor, on Sunday the 25th of June, 1710. By Thomas Goddard, A. M. Canon of Windsor. London, printed for B. Lintot, 1710.-Mr. Goddard was Where pastors must their stubborn flock obey, And nothing vex, or venture to disturb them, By Jove's command, two eagles took their flight, installed canon May 26, 1707, and was also rector of St. Bennet Finch, London. He published a 30th of January sermon, in 4to, 1703; and The Mercy of God to this Church and Kingdom, exemplified in the several Instances of it, from the Beginning of the Reformation down to the present Time. A Sermon preached in St. George's Chapel at Windsor, on Tuesday the 7th of November, the Day of Thanksgiving, 1710, 8vo. They were all reprinted in 1715, with three others, under the title of Six Sermons on several Occasions, 8vo. N. 2 A well-known political paper by De Foe, in which Mr. Goddard's sermon was immoderately commended. See a long account of this writer, and of Ridpath and Tutchin his associates, in the Supplement to Swift. N. VOL. IX. THE LIFE OF SPRAT. BY DR. JOHNSON. THOMAS SPRAT was born in 1636, at Tallaton in Devonshire, the son of a clergyman; and having been educated, as he tells of himself, not at Westminster or Eton, but at a little school by the church-yard side, became a commoner of Wadham College in Oxford in 1651; and, being chosen scholar next year, proceeded through the usual academical course; and, in 1657, became master of arts. He obtained a fellowship, and commenced poet. In 1659, his poem on the death of Oliver was published, with those of Dryden and Waller. In his dedication to Dr. Wilkins, he appears a very willing and liberal encomiast, both of the living and the dead. He implores his patron's excuse of his verses, both as falling" so infinitely below the full and sublime genius of that excellent poet who made this way of writing free of our nation," and being "so little equal and proportioned to the renown of a prince on whom they were written; such great actions and lives deserving to be the subject of the noblest pens and most divine phansies." He proceeds: "Having so long experienced your care and indulgence, and been formed, as it were, by your own hands, not to entitle you to any thing which my meanness produces would be not only injustice, but sacrilege." He published, the same year, a poem on the Plague of Athens; a subject of which it is not easy to say what could recommend it. To these he added afterwards a poem on Mr. Cowley's death. After the Restoration he took orders, and by Cowley's recommendation was made chaplain to the duke of Buckingham, whom he is said to have helped in writing the Rehearsal. He was likewise chaplain to the king. As he was the favourite of Wilkins, at whose house began those philosophical conferences and inquiries which in time produced the Royal Society, he was consequently engaged in the same studies, and became one of the fellows; and when, after their incorporation, something seemed necessary to reconcile the public to the new institution, he undertook to write its history, which he published in 1667. This is one of the few books which selection of sentiment and elegance of diction have been able to preserve, though written upon a subject flux and transitory. The History of the Royal Society |