g of Malden
abovementioned, and was, says that gentleman, so far from being
tinctured with fanaticism, that I have often heard him express his
abhorrence of the destructive tenets maintained by that people, both
against our religious and civil rights. This imputation it seems was
cast on him by there having been one of his sur-name, though not any way
related to him, a dissenting teacher, and who published some rhimes upon
spiritual subjects, as he called them, and which sufficiently proved him
an enthusiast.

About the year 1703 Mr. Pomfret came up to London, for institution and
induction, into a very considerable living, but was retarded for some
time by a disgust taken by dr. Henry Compton, then bishop of London, at
these four lines, in the close of his poem entitled The Choice.

And as I near approach'd the verge of life,
Some kind relation (for I'd have no wife)
Should take upon him all my worldly care,
While I did for a better state prepare.

The parenthesis in these verses was so maliciously represented to the
bishop, that his lordship was given to understand, it could bear no
other construction than that Mr. Pomfret preferred a mistress before a
wife; though the words may as well admit of another meaning, and import
no more, than the preference of a single life to marriage; unless the
gentlemen in orders will assert, that an unmarried Clergyman cannot
live without a mistress. But the bishop was soon convinced that this
aspersion against him, was no more than an effort of malice, as Mr.
Pomfret at that time was really married. The opposition which his
enemies made to him, had, in some measure, its effect; for by the
obstructions he met with, he was obliged to stay longer in London than
he intended, and as the Small-pox then raged in the metropolis, he
sickened them, and died in London in the 36th year of his age.

The above-mentioned friend of Mr. Pomfret, has likewise shewn the
ungenerous treatment he met with in regard to his poetical compositions,
in a book entitled Poems by the Earl of Roscommon, and Mr. Duke, printed
1717, in the preface to which, the publisher has peremptorily inserted
the following paragraph. 'In this collection says he, of my lord
Roscommon's poems, care has been taken to insert all I possibly could
procure, that are truly genuine, there having been several things
published under his name, which were written by others, the authors of
which I could set down if it were material