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POETA nascitur, non fit, is a sentence of as great truth as antiquity; it being most certain that all the acquired learning imaginable is insufficient to complete a poet, without a natural genius and propensity to so noble and sublime an art. And we may, without offence, observe that many very learned men, who have been ambitious to be thought poets, have only rendered themselves obnoxious to that satirical inspiration our Author wittily invokes ;

Which made them, tho' it were in spite

Of Nature and their stars, to write.

On the other side, some who have had very little human learning, but were endued with a large share of natural wit and parts, have become the most cele brated poets of the age they lived in. But as these last are rare aves in terris, so when the Muses have not disdained the assistances of other arts and sciences, we are then blessed with those lasting monuments of wit and learning which may justly claim a kind of eternity upon earth: and our Author, had his modesty permitted him, might with Horace, have said,

Exegi monumentum ære perennius;

or, with Ovid,

Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira nec ignis,
Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.

The Author of this celebrated Poem was of this last composition; for although he had not the happiness of

an academical education, as some affirm, it may be perceived, throughout his whole Poem, that he had read much, and was very well accomplished in the most useful parts of human learning.

Rapin, in his Reflections, speaking of the necessary qualities belonging to a poet, tells us, he must have a genius extraordinary; great natural gifts; a wit just, fruitful, piercing, solid, and universal; an understanding clear and distinct; an imagination neat and pleasant; an elevation of soul that depends not only on art or study, but is purely a gift of Heaven, which must be sustained by a lively sense and vivacity; judgment to consider wisely of things, and vivacity for the beautiful expression of them, &c.

Now, how justly this character is due to our Author I leave to the impartial reader, and those of nicer judgments, who had the happiness to be more intimately acquainted with him.

The reputation of this incomparable Poem is so . thoroughly established in the world, that it would be superfluous, if not impertinent, to endeavour any panegyrick upon it. However, since most men have a curiosity to have some account of such [anonymous] authors, whose compositions have been eminent for wit or learning, I have been desired to oblige them with such information as I could receive from those who had the happiness to be acquainted with him, and also to rectify the mistakes of the Oxford Antiquary, in his Athena Oronien es, concerning him.

THE LIFE OF

SAMUEL BUTLER.

SAMUEL BUTLER, he Author of this excellent Poem, was born in the parish of Strensham, in the county of Worcester, and baptized there the 13th of February 1612. His father, who was of the same name, was an honest country farmer, who had some small Estate of his own, but rented a much greater of the lord of the manor where he lived. However, perceiving in this son an early inclination to learning, he made a shift to have him educated in the free school at Worcester, under Mr. Henry Bright; where, having passed the usual time, and being become an excellent school-scholar, he went afterwards, for some little time, to Cambridge, but was never matriculated into that university, his father's abilities not being sufficient to be at the charge of an academical education; so that our Author returned soon into his native country, and became clerk to one Mr. Jefferys of Earlscroom, an eminent justice of the peace for that county, with whom he lived some years in an easy and no contemptible service. Here, by the indulgence of a kind master, he had sufficient leisure to apply himself to whatever learning his inclinations led him, which

were chiefly history and poetry, to which, for his diversion, he joined music and painting: and I have seen some pictures said to be of his drawing, which remained in that family; which I mention not for the excellency of them, but to satisfy the reader of his early inclinations to that noble art; for which also he was afterwards entirely beloved by Mr. Samuel Cooper, one of the most eminent painters of his time.

He was after this recommended to that great encourager of learning, Elizabeth Countess of Kent, where he had not, only the opportunity to consult all manner of learned books, but to converse also with that living library of learning, the great Mr. Selden.

Our Author lived some time also with Sir. Samuel Luke, who was of an ancient family in Bedfordshire, but, to his dishonour, an eminent commander under the Usurper Oliver Cromwell; and then it was, as I am informed, he composed this loyal Poem. For though fate, more than choice, seems to have placed him in the service of a Knight so notorious, both in his person and politics, yet, by the rule of Contraries, one may observe, throughout his whole Poem, that he was most orthodox both in his religion and loyalty. And I am the more induced to believe he wrote it about that time, because he had then the opportunity to converse with those living characters of Rebellion, Nonsense, and Hypocrisy, which he so lively and pathetically exposes throughout the whole Work.

After the restoration of King Charles II. those who were at the helm minding money more than merit, our Author found those verses of Juvenal to be exactly verified in himself:

Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat

Res angusta domi.--

And being endued with that innate modesty which rarely finds promotion in princes' courts, he became Secretary to Richard Earl of Carbury, Lord President of the Principality of Wales, who made him Steward of Ludlow-castle, when the Court there was revived. About this time he married one Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a very good family, but no widow, as our Oxford Antiquary has reported. She had a competent fortune, but it was most of it unfortunately lost, by being put out on ill securities, so that it was of little advantage to him. He is reported, by our Antiquary, to have been Secretary to his Grace George Duke of Buckingham, when he was Chancellor to the university of Cambridge; but whether that be true or no, it is certain the Duke had a great kindness for him, and was often a benefactor to him. But no man was a more generous friend to him than that Mæcenas of all learned and witty men, Charles Lord Buckhurst, the late Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, who, being himself an excellent poet, knew how to set a just value upon the ingenious performances of others, and has often taken care privately to relieve