Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/418

142412 [sic] with the practice of design, or rudiments of painting.

His studies did not withdraw him wholly from business, nor did business hinder him from study. He had a place in the office of ordnance, and was secretary to several comissions for purchacing lands necessary to secure the royal docks at Chatham and Portsmouth; yet found time to acquaint himself with modern languages.

In 1697 he published a poem on the Peace of Ryswick; and in 1699 another piece called the Court of Neptune, on the return of king William, which he addressed to Mr. Montague, the general patron for the followers of the Muses. The same year he produced a song on the duke of Gloucester's birth-day.

He did not confine himself to poetry, but cultivated other kinds of writing with great success; and about this time shewed his knowledge of human nature by an Essay on the Pleasure of being decieved. In 1702 he published, on the death of king William, a Pindarick ode called the House of Nassau; and wrote another paraphrase on the Otium Dovos of Horace.

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