As an elegant writer, indeed, of Latin verse, he is justly numbered amongst the most successful of the accomplished poets of our nation--Ben Jonson, Cowley, Milton, Marvell, Crashaw, Addison, Gray, Smart, T. Warton, Sir W. Jones, &c.--who have devoted their leisure to this species of composition. Clarendon goes on to say that May was "born to a fortune, if his father had not spent it; so that he had only an annuity left him, not proportionable to a liberal education:" "Yet since," continues this illustrious authority, "his fortune could not raise his mind, he brought his mind down to his fortune, by a great modesty and humility in his nature, which was not affected, but very well became an imperfection in his speech, which was a great mortification to him, and kept him from entering upon any discourse but in the company of his very friends," of whom he had not a few, for "he was cherished by many persons of honour, and very acceptable in all places." From Charles I., no mean judge of poetry, and a liberal patron of the Muses, May received much encouragement, and many substantial marks of favour in the shape of donatives; and it was at the express command of this monarch that he wrote his historical poem entitled _The Victorious Reigne of Edward III._ From disgust, however, at the appointment of D'Avenant to the Laureateship, on the death of Jonson in 1637,--a post to which, according to what he considered to be his own superior deserts[3], he was himself justly entitled,--"May fell from his duty, and all his former friends," and became an active agent in promoting the designs of the so-called popular leaders. Through the interest of Cromwell, he was nominated Secretary to the Parliament, in which capacity he wrote a History of its transactions, a work which was published in 1647. This performance, which is highly commended by Granger, rendered its author extremely obnoxious to the royal party, who exercised all their powers of pen to disparage both the book and its compiler. He is represented by Clarendon, for instance, "as prostituting himself to the vile office of celebrating the infamous acts of those who were in rebellion against the king; which he did so meanly, that he seemed to all men to have lost his wits, when he left his honesty." Anthony a Wood's account[4] of these matters, and of May himself, is that "He was graciously countenanced by K. Charles I. and his royal consort; but he, finding not that preferment from either which he expected, grew discontented, sided with the Presbyterians, and, upon the {280} turn of the times, became a debauchee _ad omnia_; entertained ill principles as to religion, spoke often very slightly of the Trinity, kept beastly and atheistical company, of whom Thos. Challoner, the regicide, was one, and endeavoured to his power to asperse and invalidate the king and his cause."