The Works of Samuel Johnson, Ll D

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: P O M F R E T. OF Mr. JOHN POMFRET nothing is known but from a ffight and confufed account prefixed to his poems by a namelefs friend; who relates, that he was the fon of the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, rector of Luion, in Bedfordfbirc; that he was bred at Cambridge; entered into orders, and was rector of Maiden in Bedfordlhire, and might have rifen in the Church; but that, when he applied to Dr Compton. bifhop of London, for inftitution to a living of con-, liderable value, to which he had been prelentcd, he found a troublefome obftruction railed by a malicious interpretation of fome paiftge in his Choice; from which it was inferred, that he confidered happinefs as more likely to be found in the company of a mif- trefs than of a wife. This reproach was eanly obliterated: for it had happened to Pomfret as to almoftall other men who plan fchemes of life; he had departed from his pur- pofe, and was then married. He was of Queen's College there, and, by the Univerfity- regifter, appears to hnve taken his Bachelor's degree in 1684, and his Matter's i6j9. H. The malice of his enemies had however a very fatal confequence: the delay conftrained his attendance in London, where he caught the fmall-pox, and died in 1703, in the thirty-fixth year of his age. He publifhed his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that clafs of readers, who without vanity or criticifm, feek only their own amufement. His Choice exhibits a fyftem of life adapted to common notions, and equal to common expectations; fuch a ftate as affords plenty and tranquillity, without exclufion of intellectual pleafures. Perhaps no com- pofition in our language has been oftener perufed than Pomfret's Choice. In his other poems there is an eafy volubility; the pleafure of fmooth metre is afforded ...