the Creation; and ends
with a very humorous tale upon the discovery of that useful utensil, A
Bottle-Screw.
Mr. Amhurst died of a fever at Twickenham, April 27, 1742. Our poet had
a great enmity to the exorbitant demands, and domineering spirit of the
High-Church clergy, which he discovers by a poem of his, called, The
convocation, in five cantos; a kind of satire against all the writers,
who shewed themselves enemies of the bishop of Bangor. He translated The
Resurrection, and some other of Mr. Addison's Latin pieces.
He wrote an epistle (with a petition in it) to Sir John Blount, Bart.
one of the directors of the South-Sea Company, 1726.
Oculus Britanniae, an Heroi-panegyrical Poem, on the University of
Oxford, 8vo. 1724.
In a poem of Mr. Amhurst's, called, An Epistle from the Princess
Sobiesky to the Chevalier de St. George, he has the following nervous
lines, strongly expressive of the passion of love.
Relentless walls and bolts obstruct my way,
And, guards as careless, and as deaf as they;
Or to my James thro' whirlwinds I would, go,
Thro' burning deserts, and o'er alps of snow,
Pass spacious roaring, oceans undismay'd,
And think the mighty dangers well repaid.
* * * * *
Mr. GEORGE LILLO.
Was by profession a jeweller. He was born in London, on the 4th of Feb.
1693. He lived, as we are informed, near Moorgate, in the same
neighbourhood where he received his birth, and where he was always
esteemed as a person of unblemished character. 'Tis said, he was
educated in the principles of the dissenters: be that as it will, his
morals brought no disgrace on any sect or party. Indeed his principal
attachment was to the muses.
His first piece, brought on the stage, was a Ballad Opera, called
Sylvia; or, The Country Burial; performed at the Theatre Royal in
Lincoln's-Inn Fields, but with no extraordinary success, in the year
1730. The year following he brought his play, called The London
Merchant; or, The True Story of George Barnwell, to Mr. Cibber junior;
(then manager of the summer company, at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane)
who originally played the part of Barnwell.--The author was not then
known. As this was almost a new species of tragedy, wrote on a very
uncommon subject, he rather chose it should take its fate in the summer,
than run the more hazardous fate of encountering the winter criticks.
The old ballad of George Barnwell (on which the story w
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