Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/268

262 the Royal Society, he was consequently engaged in the same studies, and be came one of the fellows; and when, after their incorporation, something seemed necessary to reconcile the publick to the new institution, he undertook to write it's history, which he published in 1667. This is one of the few books which selection of sentiment and elegance of diction have been able to preserve, though written upon a subject flux and transitory. The History of the Royal Society is now read, not with the wish to know what they were then doing, but how their Transactions are exhibited by Sprat.

In the next year he published Observations on Sorbiere's Voyage into England, in a Letter to Mr. Wren. This is a work not ill-performed; but perhaps rewarded with at least its full proportion of praise.

In 1668 he published Cowley's Latin poems, and prefixed in Latin the Life of the Author; which he afterwards amplified, and placed before Cowley's English works, which were by will committed to his care.

Ecclesiastical benefices now fell fast upon him. In 1668 he became a prebendary of Rh