Of Tate, honoured with so high a trust by our great poet, biographers have preserved but a very imperfect memorial. He was the son of Dr Faithful Tate or Teat, was born in Ireland, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He wrote, or rather new modelled and translated, nine plays, of which, his alteration of King Lear still keeps the stage, in defiance of its gross departure from Shakespeare's plot and moral. During the reign of Charles and his successor, Tate was a keen Tory, as may be easily guessed from Dryden's employing him in the honourable task of writing a second part to his admirable satire; yet, upon Shadwell's death, he was made poet laureat to King William, and retained that office till his own decease. His talent for poetry amounted to cold mediocrity; had he been a man of fortune, it would have raised him to the rank of an easy sonnet writer, or a person of wit and honour about town. As he was very poor, it is no disgrace to his muse, that she left him in that indigence from which far more distinguished poetical merit has been unable to raise those who possessed it. Tate died in the Mint, where he had taken refuge from his creditors, on the 12th of August, 1715. He had long been in extreme want, having owed almost his sole subsistence to the patronage or charity of the Earl of Dorset. His poetry is multifarious; but consists chiefly of pieces upon occasional subjects, written to supply the immediate wants of the author. The Psalms, of which he executed a translation, in conjunction with Dr Brady, are still used in the church of England, although, in the opinion of many persons, they are inferior to the old version.[349] The following continuation of "Absalom and Achitophel," owes all its spirit to the touches and additions of the author of the first part. Those lines, to the number of two hundred, beginning, Next these a troop of busy spirits press; and concluding, To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee,