This poet, who was likewise an eminent Geographer and Cosmographer, was born near Edinburgh in the year 1600[1]. His father, who was of an ancient and genteel family, having spent his estate, and being prisoner in the King's Bench for debt, could give his son but little education at school; but our author, who, in his early years discovered the most invincible industry, obtained a little knowledge in the Latin grammar, and afterwards so much money, as not only to procure his father's discharge from prison, but also to bind himself apprentice to Mr. Draper a dancing master in Holbourn, London. Soon after, by his dexterity in his profession, and his complaisant behaviour to his master's employers, he obtained the favour of them to lend him as much money as to buy out the remaining part of his time, and set up for himself; but being afterwards appointed to dance in the duke of Buckingham's great Masque, by a false step, he strained a vein in the inside of his leg, which ever after occasioned him to halt. He afterwards taught dancing to the sisters of Sir Ralph Hopton, at Wytham in Somersetshire, where, at leisure, he learned to handle the pike and musket. When Thomas earl of Strafford became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he was retained in his family to teach the art of dancing, and being an excellent penman, he was frequently employed by the earl to transcribe papers for him. In his lordship's family it was that he first gave proofs of his inclination to poetry, by translating some of AEsop's Fables into English verse, which he communicated to some learned men, who understood Latin better than he, by whose assistance and advice he published them. He was one of the troop of guards belonging to the earl, and composed an humourous piece entitled the Character of a Trooper. About the time he was supported by his lordship, he was made master of the revels for the kingdom of Ireland, and built a little theatre for the representation of dramatic entertainments, in St. Warburgh's street in Dublin: but upon the breaking out of the rebellion in that kingdom, he was several times in great danger of his life, particularly when he narrowly escaped being blown up in the castle of Rathfarnam. About the time of the conclusion of the war in England, he left Ireland, and being shipwrecked, came to London in a very necessitous condition. After he had made a short stay in the metropolis, he travelled on foot to Cambridge, where his great industry, and love of learning, recommended him to the notice of several scholars, by whose assistance he became so compleat a master of the Latin tongue, that in 1646 he published an English translation of Virgil, which was printed in large 8vo. and dedicated to William marquis of Hereford. He reprinted it at London 1654 in fol. with this title; The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro, translated and adorned with Sculptures, and illustrated with Annotations; which, Mr. Wood