SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
1667, April 2. A precept was received by tlie master and w^rdeps of the stationers' com- pany to attend the lord mayor, for receivine his majesty's pleasure about rebuildinar their nail.
1667, may 2. Died, Georoe Withers, a poet of some eminence, who was imprisoned for nis first work, called Abuses Whipt and Stript, l>ut still continued to write satires and eclogues in prison. Sir John Denhara bep^ged his life that it might be said that there was a worse poet living than himself. The following inscription is from a collection of rare portraits in the Cra- cherode collection, in the British museum : —
No nuittet where the world beatowes her pralK,
Or -whom she crownea with her victorious bayes :
For he that fearless hath opposed the crymefl
And checkt the ^aot vices of the tymes ;
He that unchanged hath afflictions borne,
That smiles on wants, that lauglis contempts to scorne.
And hath most courage when moet perlUs are.
Is he that should of right the laurel weare.
The motto of George Withers was, " I grow and wither both together."
16^7, July as. Died, Abraham Cowlev, a writer of considerable note, whom Dr. Johnson places at the head of our metaphysical poets. Cowley is sometimes sublime, always moral, and frequently witty ; his poems possess great shrewd- ness, ingenuity, and learning ; yet, though they frequently excite our admiration, they seldom convey pleasure. The Anacreontics (gay trifles in the manner of the Greek poet Anacreon) are reckoned the best. He wrote a comedy called the Cutter of Coleman Street. His prose works extend but to sixty folio pages, and consist of a Discourse on the government of Cromutell, and a Proposition for the advancement of Experimental Philosophy. In these essays it is allowed that he writes with more natural ease, and is there- fore more successful in prose than in verse. He was born in London in 1618, where his fa- ther was an apothecary, and received his educa- tion iiist at Westminster school, and afterwards at Trinity college, Cambridge, from whence he was gected for his loyalty, and then went to Oxford, where he materially ser\-ed the royal cause. He afterwards went to France, and on his return, in 1656, he was committed to prison, from whence he was bailed by Dr. Scarborough. In 1657 he obtained the degree of M. D. from the university of Oxford. At the restoration he obtained a lease of a farm at Chertsey, valued at £300 a-year, where he died. His remains were deposited in Westminster abbey, and a monument erected to his memory.
1667, Aug. 10. The charter of the stationers' company was exemplified, at the request of Humphry Robinson, master, and Evan Tyler and Richard Royston, wardens.
\Sff!,Aug. 13. i>ied,jEBEMYTAVLOR, bishop of Downe and Connor, in Ireland, and one of the most admired English writers, especially in the department of theology. He was born of poor parents at Cambridge, between the years 1600 and 1610, and through his attention to learning procured the friendship of archbi-shop
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1 Laud, who obtained for him a fellowship of All Souls' college, Oxford. Being devoted to the royal cause he was obliged to live in obscurity during the time of the commonwealth, and for his support he taught school in Carmardienshire. He afterwards went to Ireland in the suit of lord Conway; and at the restoration, (1661) he was raised to theepiscopal bench. The principal work of bishop Taylor, is the Liberty of Pro- phecying, wliieh is remarkable as being the first treatise published in England, in which it was assumed, and attempted to be proved, that no man has a right to prescribe the religious faith of another, or prosecute him for difference of opinion. His other works arc, the Rule and Exercise of Holy Living, and the Rule and Ex- ercise of Holy Dying, besides many sermons. An eminent critic says of bishop Taylor, that, " in one of his prose folios, there is more fine fancy and original imagery — more brilliant con- ceptions and glowing expressions — more new figures and new applications of old figures — more, in short, of the body and soul of poetry, than in all the odes and epics that have since been produced in Europe."
1668. The companv of stationers gave direc- tions, " that the beadle do give notice to every printer, to reserve in his custody three of every book by him printed, of the best and largest paper, according to the act of parliament at Oxford in 1665.
1668, April 2. Amongst otlier libertine libels there was one now printed and thrown about, called a Bold Petition of the poor W — es to Lady Castlemaine : written, it would appear, by Eve]}^! himself. — Evelyn's Diary.
1668. The earliest English publication which has any claim to be considered as an annual register, is Edward Chambcrlayne's Anglia No- tilia, or the Present State of England, which continued to be annually published, with the requisite alterations, till the year 1703 inclusive. This work, however, presented merely an account of the country in its existing state, with the list of public functionaries, he.
1668. The art of printing introduced into the episcopal town of Lund, capital of Schonen, in Sweden. In 1666, Charles XI. founded an university in this town, and the new academy immediately looked round for a printer. In 1668 they established in that capacity Vitus Haberger from Malmoe. Troublesome times, however, prevented this printer from continuing long at Lund, from whence having retired to Malmoe after a sojourn of only eight years, in 1687 he removed his press to Carlscrona, ut Ammirali- tatis Jieret typographus; but not succeeding to his expectation, he returned once more to Malmoe. At Lund, Peter Winstrupius, bishop of Scania, erected a printing-office of his own for the express purpose of printing some Pandects on St. Mattheic's Gospel, the first volume of which appeared in 1666. George Scbroeder, who afterwards directed this press, was imprison- ed for publishing some seditious or treasonable pamphlets during the war with Denmark, and
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