As to our author's poetry, we have the authority of Mr. Pope to pronounce it below criticism, at least his translations; and in all probability his original epic poems which we have never seen, are not much superior to his translations of Homer and Virgil. If Ogilby had not a poetical genius, he was notwithstanding a man of parts, and made an amazing proficiency in literature, by the force of an unwearied application. He cannot be sufficiently commended for his virtuous industry, as well as his filial piety, in procuring, in so early a time of life, his father's liberty, when he was confined in a prison. Ogilby seems indeed to have been a good sort of man, and to have recommended himself to the world by honest means, without having recourse to the servile arts of flattery, and the blandishments of falshood. He is an instance of the astonishing efficacy of application; had some more modern poets been blessed with a thousandth part of his oeconomy and industry, they needed not to have lived in poverty, and died of want. Although Ogilby cannot be denominated a genius, yet he found means to make a genteel livelihood by literature, which many of the sons of Parnassus, blessed with superior powers, curse as a very dry and unpleasing soil, but which proceeds more from want of culture, than native barrenness. Footnote: 1. Athen Oxon. vol. ii. p. 378. * * * * * WILMOT, Earl of ROCHESTER. It is an observation founded on experience, that the poets have, of all other men, been most addicted to the gratifications of appetite, and have pursued pleasure with more unwearied application than men of other characters. In this respect they are indeed unhappy, and have ever been more subject to pity than envy. A violent love of pleasure, if it does not destroy, yet, in a great measure, enervates all other good qualities with which a man may be endowed; and as no men have ever enjoyed higher parts from nature, than the poets, so few, from this unhappy attachment to pleasure, have effected so little good by those amazing powers. Of the truth of this observation, the nobleman, whose memoirs we are now to present to the reader, is a strong and indelible instance, for few ever had more ability, and more frequent opportunities, for promoting the interests of society, and none ever prostituted the gifts of Heaven to a more inglorious purpose. Lord Rochester was not more remarkable for the superiority of his parts, than the extraordinary debauchery of his life, and with his dissipations of pleasure, he suffered sometimes malevolent principles to govern him, and was equally odious for malice and envy, as for the boundless gratifications of his appetites.