of
Theocritus, translated by him. His parents circumstances not being
sufficient to bestow a liberal education upon him, colonel Strangeways,
who was himself a man of taste and literature, took notice of the early
capacity of Creech, and being willing to indulge his violent propensity
to learning, placed him at Wadham College in Oxford, in the 16th year
of his age, anno 1675, being then put under the tuition of two of the
fellows. In the year 1683 he was admitted matter of arts, and
soon elected fellow of All-soul's College; at which time he gave
distinguished proofs of his classical learning, and philosophy, before
those who were appointed his examiners. The first work which brought
our author into reputation, was his translation of Lucretius, which
succeeded so well, that Mr. Creech had a party formed for him, who
ventured to prefer him to Mr. Dryden, in point of genius. Mr. Dryden
himself highly commended his Lucretius, and in his preface to the second
volume of Poetical Miscellanies thus characterises it. 'I now call to
mind what I owe to the ingenious, and learned translator of Lucretius.
I have not here designed to rob him of any part of that commendation,
which he has so justly acquired by the whole author, whose fragments
only fall to my portion. The ways of our translation are very different;
he follows him more closely than I have done, which became an
interpreter to the whole poem. I take more liberty, because it best
suited with my design, which was to make him as pleasing as I could. He
had been too voluminous, had he used my method, in so long a work; and
I had certainly taken his, had I made it my business to translate the
whole. The preference then is justly his; and I join with Mr. Evelyn in
the confession of it, with this additional advantage to him, that his
reputation is already established in this poet; mine is to make its
fortune in the world. If I have been any where obscure in following
our common author; or if Lucretius himself is to be condemned, I refer
myself to his excellent annotations, which I have often read, and always
with some pleasure.'

Many poets of the first class, of those times, addressed Mr. Creech in
commendatory verses, which are prefixed to the translation of Lucretius:
but this sudden blaze of reputation was soon obscured, by his failing
in an arduous task, which the success of his Lucretius prompted him to
attempt. This was a translation of the works of Horace, an author mo