The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland

Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, The

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and
Ireland (1753), by Theophilus Cibber This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume II
Author: Theophilus Cibber
Release Date: August 7, 2005 [EBook #16469]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Anglistica & Americana
A Series of Reprints Selected by Bernhard Fabian, Edgar Mertner, Karl Schneider and Marvin Spevack
17
GEORG OLMS VERLAGSBUCHHANDLUNG HILDESHEIM
THEOPHILUS CIBBER
The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland
(1753)
Vol. II
1968
GEORG OLMS VERLAGSBUCHHANDLUNG HILDESHEIM
Note
The present facsimile is reproduced from a copy in the possession of the Library of the University of G?ttingen. Shelfmark: H. lit. biogr. I 8464.
Although the title-page of Volume I announces four volumes, the work is continued in a fifth volume of the same date. Like Volumes II, III, and IV, it is by "Mr. CIBBER, and other Hands" and is "Printed for R. GRIFFITHS".
M.S.
Reprografischer Nachdruck der Ausgabe London 1753 Printed in Germany Herstellung: fotokap wilhelm weihert, Darmstadt Best.-Nr. 5102040
THE
LIVES
OF THE
POETS
OF
GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND.
Compiled from ample Materials scattered in a Variety of Books, and especially from the MS. Notes of the late ingenious Mr. COXETER and others, collected for this Design,
By Mr. CIBBER, and other Hands.
VOL. II.
LONDON: Printed for R. GRIFFITHS, at the Dunciad in St. Paul's Church-Yard. MDCCLIII
VOLUME II.
Contains the
LIVES
OF
Brewer Newcastle, Duchess May Newcastle, Duke Taylour Birkenhead Habington Boyle, E. Orrery Goldsmith Head Cleveland Hobbs Holiday [sic] Cokaine Nabbes Wharton Shirley Killegrew, Anne Howel Lee Fanshaw Butler Cowley Waller Davenant Ogilby King Rochester [Massinger] Buckingham Stapleton Smith Main Otway Milton [Oldham] Philips [Roscommon]
* * * * *
_Just Published,_
In one small Octavo Volume, Price bound in Calf 3s.
A TRANSLATION of the Ingenious Abbé DE MABLY'S Observations on the ROMANS. A learned and curious Performance; wherein the Policy of that People is set in so clear a Light, and the Characters of their great Men drawn with such a masterly Pen, as cannot but recommend it to all Lovers of Classical Learning.
In this Work many new Lights are cast upon the Characters and Conduct of the following celebrated Personages:
Romulus, | Pompey, | Otho, Tarquin the Elder, | Cato, | Vitellius, Servius Tullus, | C?sar, | Vespasian, Brutus, | Cicero, | Titus, The Gracchi, | Antony, | Domitian, Marius, | Augustus, | Nerva, Sylla, | Tiberius, | Trajan, Crassus, | Caligula, | Antoninus, Scipio, | Claudius, | Marcus Aurelius, Hannibal, | Nero, | Diocletian, Pyrrhus, | Galba, | Constantine the Great &c. &c. &c.
Printed for R. GRIFFITHS, in _Paul's Church-Yard_.
* * * * *

THE
LIVES
OF THE
POETS

ANTHONY BREWER,
A poet who flourished in the reign of Charles I. but of whose birth and life we can recover no particulars. He was highly esteemed by some wits in that reign, as appears from a Poem called Steps to Parnassus, which pays him the following well turned compliment.
Let Brewer take his artful pen in hand, Attending muses will obey command, Invoke the aid of Shakespear's sleeping clay, And strike from utter darkness new born day.
Mr. Winstanley, and after him Chetwood, has attributed a play to our author called Lingua, or the Contention of the Tongue and the Five Senses for Superiority, a Comedy, acted at Cambridge, 1606; but Mr. Langbaine is of opinion, that neither that, Love's Loadstone, Landagartha, or Love's Dominion, as Winstanley and Philips affirm, are his; Landagartha being written by Henry Burnel, esquire, and Love's Dominion by Flecknoe. In the Comedy called Lingua, there is a circumstance which Chetwood mentions, too curious, to be omitted here. When this play was acted at Cambridge, Oliver Cromwel performed the part of Tactus, which he felt so warmly, that it first fired his ambition, and, from the possession of an imaginary crown, he stretched his views to a real one; to accomplish which, he was content to wade through a sea of blood, and, as Mr. Gray beautifully expresses it, shut the Gates of Mercy on Mankind; the speech with which he is said to have been so affected, is the following,
Roses, and bays, pack hence: this crown and robe, My brows, and body, circles and invests; How gallantly it fits me! sure the slave Measured my head, that wrought this coronet; They lie that say,