POM FRET. O' F Mr. JOHN POMFRET nothing is known but from a flight and confufed account prefixed to his poems by a nameless friend; who relates, that he was the fon of the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, rector of Luton in Bedfordshire; that he was bred at Cambridge, entered into orders, and was rector of Malden in Bedfordshire, and might have rifen in the Church; but that, when he applied to Dr. Compton, bishop of London, for institution to a living of confiderable value, to which he had been presented, he found a troublesome obftruction raised by a malicious interpretation of fome paffage in his Choice; from which it was inferred, that he confidered happiness as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of a wife. This reproach was eafily obliterated: for it had happened to Pomfret as to almost all other men who plan schemes of life; he had departed from his purpose, and was then married. The The malice of his enemies. had however a very fatal confequence: the delay conftrained his attendance in London, where he caught the fmall-pox, and died in 1703, in the thirty-fixth year of his age. He published his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that clafs of readers, who, without vanity or criticism, feek only their own amufement. His Choice exhibits a fyftem of life adapted to common notions, and equal to common expectations; fuch a ftate as affords plenty and tranquillity, without exclufion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no compofition in our language has been oftener perufed than Pomfret's Choice. In his other poems there is an eafy volubility; the pleasure of fmooth metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not op preffed with ponderous or entangled with intricate fentiment. He pleafes many, and he who pleases many must have merit. DORSET, DORSET O F the Earl of Dorfet the character has been drawn fo largely and fo elegantly by Prior, to whom he was familiarly known, that nothing can be added by a casual hand; and, as it has appeared in one of the volumes of the late collection, it would be useless officiousness to transcribe it, Charles Sackville was born January 24, 1637. Having been educated under a private tutor, he travelled into Italy, and returned a little before the Restoration. He was chofen into the first parliament that was called, for Eaft Grinstead in Suffex, and foon became a favourite of Charles the Second; but undertook no publick employment, being too eager of the riotous and licentious pleasures |