t, he set up a
printing-office, was appointed his Majesty's Cosmographer and
Geographic Printer, and printed many great works translated and
collected by himself and his assistants, the enumeration of which
would be unnecessary and tedious.

This laborious man died September 4, 1676, and was interred in the
vault under part of the church in St. Bride's in Fleet-street. Mr.
Edward Philips in his Theatrum Poetarum stiles him one of the
prodigies, from producing, after so late an initiation into
literature, so many large and learned volumes, as well in verse as in
prose, and tells us, that his Paraphrase upon AEsop's Fables, is
generally confessed to have exceeded whatever hath been done before in
that kind.

As to our author's poetry, we have the authority of Mr. Pope to
pronounce it below criticism, at least his translations; and in all
probability his original epic poems which we have never seen, are not
much superior to his translations of Homer and Virgil. If Ogilby had
not a poetical genius, he was notwithstanding a man of parts, and made
an amazing proficiency in literature, by the force of an unwearied
application. He cannot be sufficiently commended for his virtuous
industry, as well as his filial piety, in procuring, in so early a
time of life, his father's liberty, when he was confined in a prison.

Ogilby seems indeed to have been a good sort of man, and to have
recommended himself to the world by honest means, without having
recourse to the servile arts of flattery, and the blandishments of
falshood. He is an instance of the astonishing efficacy of
application; had some more modern poets been blessed with a thousandth
part of his oeconomy and industry, they needed not to have lived in
poverty, and died of want. Although Ogilby cannot be denominated a
genius, yet he found means to make a genteel livelihood by literature,
which many of the sons of Parnassus, blessed with superior powers,
curse as a very dry and unpleasing soil, but which proceeds more from
want of culture, than native barrenness.

Footnote:
1. Athen Oxon. vol. ii. p. 378.

* * * * *

WILMOT, Earl of ROCHESTER.

It is an observation founded on experience, that the poets have, of
all other men, been most addicted to the gratifications of appetite,
and have pursued pleasure with more unwearied application than men of
other characters. In this respect they are indeed