if you will
inform them from whence the words

"Too wise to err, too good to be unkind,"

are quoted.

T. W. A.

* * * * *

Replies.

THOMAS MAY.

(Vol. iii., p. 167.)

Thomas May, famous amongst the busy characters of his age, both as a
politician and a poet, was the eldest son of Sir Thos. May, Knt., of
Mayfield, in Sussex, where he was born in 1595. At the usual period of
life, he was admitted a fellow-commoner of Sidney Sussex College,
Cambridge; and having taken the degree of B.A. he entered himself at Gray's
Inn, with the intention of studying the law, which, however, it is
uncertain whether he ever pursued as a profession. Whilst he was a student
of the law, he made the acquaintance of Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of
Clarendon; and became the intimate associate of Ben Jonson, Selden, Cotton,
Sir K. Digby, Thos. Carew[1], "and some others of eminent faculties in
their several ways."

"His parts of nature and art," writes Clarendon[2], in describing his
character, "were very good, as appears by his translation of Lucan
(none of the easiest work of that kind), and more by his Supplement to
Lucan, which being entirely his own, for the learning, the wit, and the
language, may be well looked upon as one of the best epic poems in the
English language."

As an elegant writer, indeed, of Latin verse, he is justly numbered amongst
the most successful of the accomplished poets of our nation--Ben Jonson,
Cowley, Milton, Marvell, Crashaw, Addison, Gray, Smart, T. Warton, Sir W.
Jones, &c.--who have devoted their leisure to this species of composition.
Clarendon goes on to say that May was "born to a fortune, if his father had
not spent it; so that he had only an annuity left him, not proportionable
to a liberal education:"

"Yet since," continues this illustrious authority, "his fortune could
not raise his mind, he brought his mind down to his fortune, by a great
modesty and humility in his nature, which was not affected, but very
well became an imperfection in his speech, which was a great
mortification to him, and kept him from entering upon any discourse but
in the company of his very friends," of whom he had not a few, for "he
was cherished by many persons of honour, and very acceptable in all
places."

From Charles I., no mean judge of poetry, and a liberal patron of the
Muses, May received much encouragement, an