delightful seat, was published by an anonymous hand, in 1750,
entitled, PENSHURST. See Monthly Review, vol. II. page 331.
2. Life, p. 8, 9.
3. History of the Rebellion, Edit. Oxon. 1707, 8vo.

* * * * *

JOHN OGILBY,

This poet, who was likewise an eminent Geographer and Cosmographer,
was born near Edinburgh in the year 1600[1]. His father, who was of an
ancient and genteel family, having spent his estate, and being
prisoner in the King's Bench for debt, could give his son but little
education at school; but our author, who, in his early years
discovered the most invincible industry, obtained a little knowledge
in the Latin grammar, and afterwards so much money, as not only to
procure his father's discharge from prison, but also to bind himself
apprentice to Mr. Draper a dancing master in Holbourn, London. Soon
after, by his dexterity in his profession, and his complaisant
behaviour to his master's employers, he obtained the favour of them to
lend him as much money as to buy out the remaining part of his time,
and set up for himself; but being afterwards appointed to dance in the
duke of Buckingham's great Masque, by a false step, he strained a vein
in the inside of his leg, which ever after occasioned him to halt. He
afterwards taught dancing to the sisters of Sir Ralph Hopton, at
Wytham in Somersetshire, where, at leisure, he learned to handle the
pike and musket. When Thomas earl of Strafford became Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, he was retained in his family to teach the art of dancing,
and being an excellent penman, he was frequently employed by the earl
to transcribe papers for him.

In his lordship's family it was that he first gave proofs of his
inclination to poetry, by translating some of AEsop's Fables into
English verse, which he communicated to some learned men, who
understood Latin better than he, by whose assistance and advice he
published them. He was one of the troop of guards belonging to the
earl, and composed an humourous piece entitled the Character of a
Trooper. About the time he was supported by his lordship, he was made
master of the revels for the kingdom of Ireland, and built a little
theatre for the representation of dramatic entertainments, in St.
Warburgh's street in Dublin: but upon the breaking out of the
rebellion in that kingdom, he was several times in great danger of his
life, particularly when he n