By his dying suddenly at the Council-Table, his death was interpreted by some people in a mysterious manner;[9] but his head being opened, there were found in it certain little bags of water, which, whether by straining in his study the night before, in which he sat up till 11 o'clock, or otherwise by their own maturity, suddenly breaking, and falling upon his brain, produced his death, to the universal grief of the nation, for which he had spent his strength, and for whose interest, in a very immediate manner, he may be justly said to have fallen a sacrifice. Of all our court poets he seems to have united the greatest industry and variety of genius: It is seldom found, that the sons of Parnassus can devote themselves to public business, or execute it with success. I have already observed, that the world has lost many excellent works, which no doubt this cultivated genius would have accomplished, had he been less involved in court-affairs: but as he acted in so public a sphere, and discharged every office with inviolable honour, and consummate prudence, it is perhaps somewhat selfish in the lovers of poetry, to wish he had wrote more, and acted less. From him is descended the present noble family of the Dorsets; and it is remarkable, that all the descendants of this great man have inherited his taste for liberal arts and sciences, as well as his capacity for public business. An heir of his was the friend and patron of Dryden, and is stiled by Congreve the monarch of wit in his time, and the present age is happy in his illustrious posterity, rivalling for deeds of honour and renown the most famous of their ancestors. * * * * * INDUCTION to the MIRROR Of MAGISTRATES. The wrathful winter hast'ning on apace, With blustring blasts had all ybard the treene, And old Saturnus with his frosty face With chilling cold had pearst the tender greene: The mantles rent, wherein enwrapped been, The gladsome groves, that now lay overthrown, The tapets torn, and every tree down blown. The soil that erst so seemly was to seen, Was all despoiled of her beauteous hew, And soote fresh flowers wherewith the summers queen, Had clad the earth, new Boreas blasts down blew And small fowls flocking in their songs did rew The winter's wrath, wherewith each thing defaste, In woeful wise bewailed the summer past. [Footnote 1: Fuller's Worthies, p.105] [Footnote 2: Wood Ath. Qx. præd.] [Footnote 3: Collins's peerage, 519.] [Footnote 4: Ib. 519.] [Footnote 5: Rapin's History of England, p. 437.] [Footnote 6: This nobleman suffered death for a plot to recover the liberty of the Queen of Scots.] [Footnote 7: Rapin's History of England, vol ii. p. 617.] [Footnote 8: Rapin'a History of England, vol. ii. p. 630.] [Footnote 9: Chron. 2d edit. p. 596.] * * * * * THOMAS CHURCHYARD,