2. A Sermon against False Prophets, preached in St. Mary's Church in
Oxford, shortly after the surrender of that garrison, printed in 1697.
Ezek. xxii. 28. He afterwards published a Vindication of this Sermon
from the aspersions of Mr. Cheynel.

3. A Sermon preached at the Consecration of the Right Reverend Father
in God, Herbert, Lord Bishop of Hereford, 1662. 1 Tim. iv. 14.

4. Concio ad Academiam Oxoniensem, pro more habita inchoante Jermino,
Maii 27, 1662.

As a specimen of his poetry, we present a copy of verses addressed to
Ben Johnson.

Scorn then, their censures, who gave't out, thy wit
As long upon a comedy did fit,
As elephants bring forth: and thy blots
And mendings took more time, than fortune plots;
That such thy draught was, and so great thy thirst,
That all thy plays were drawn at Mermaid[1] first:
That the King's yearly butt wrote, and his wine
Hath more right than those to thy Cataline.
Let such men keep a diet, let their wit,
Be rack'd and while they write, suffer a fit:
When th' have felt tortures, which outpain the gout;
Such as with less the state draws treason out;
Sick of their verse, and of their poem die,
Twou'd not be thy wont scene--

Footnote:
1. A tavern in Bread-street.

* * * * *

JOHN MILTON.

The British nation, which has produced the greatest men in every
profession, before the appearance of Milton could not enter into any
competition with antiquity, with regard to the sublime excellencies of
poetry. Greece could boast an Euripides, Eschylus, Sophocles and
Sappho; England was proud of her Shakespear, Spenser, Johnson and
Fletcher; but then the ancients had still a poet in reserve superior
to the rest, who stood unrivalled by all succeeding times, and in epic
poetry, which is justly esteemed the highest effort of genius, Homer
had no rival. When Milton appeared, the pride of Greece was humbled,
the competition became more equal, and since Paradise Lost is ours; it
would, perhaps, be an injury to our national fame to yield the palm to
any state, whether ancient or modern.

The author of this astonishing work had something very singular in his
life, as if he had been marked out by Heaven to be the wonder of every
age, in all points of view in which he can be considered. He lived in
the times of general confusion; he was engaged in the factions of
state, and the cau