Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/144

134 Fides in the moſt extravagant belief, and the ſincerity of an erroneous profeſſion may render it more pardonable: But this is a compound of all the three, an extract of whatever is moſt ridiculous or impious in them, incorporated with more peculiar abſurdities of its own, in which thoſe were deficient; and all this deliberately contrived, and knowingly carried on, by the ſolid impoſture of prieſts, under the name of Chriſtianity.’

This great man died, not without ſtrong ſuſpicions of being poiſoned, Auguſt 16, 1678, in the 58th year of his age, and was interred in the church of St. Giles’s in the Fields; and in the year 1688 the town of Kingſton upon Hull contributed a ſum of money to erect a monument over him, in St. Giles’s church, for which an epitaph was compoſed by an able hand; but the miniſter of that church, piouſly forbid both the inſcription and monument to be placed there.

Mr. Wood tells us, that in his converſation, he was very modeſt, and of few words; and Mr. Cooke obſerves, ‘that he was very reſerved among people he did not very well know; but a moſt delightful, and improving companion amongſt his friends.’

In the year 1680, his miſcellaneous poems were publiſhed, to which is prefixed this advertiſement. ‘Theſe are to certify every ingenious reader, that all theſe poems, as alſo the other things in this book contained, are printed according to the exact copies of my late dear huſband, under his own hand writing, both found ſince his death, among his other papers. But