on Discovery.  Narrative of the Plot.  Zekiel and Ephraim.  Appeal to the King and Parliament.  Papist in Masquerade.  Answer to the second Character of a Popish Successor.  Confederations upon a Printed Sheet intitled, The Speech of Lord Russel to the Sheriffs:  Together with the Paper delivered by him to them at the place of execution, on July 1683.  These pieces with many more, were printed in quarto; besides which he wrote the following, viz.  The History of the Plot in Folio.  Caveat to the Cavaliers.  He translated into English Cicero’s Offices; Seneca’s Mora’s, Erasmus’s Colloquies; Quevedo’s Visions; Bona’s Guide to Eternity; Five Love Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier; Josephus’s Works; Aesop’s Fables.

* * * * *

Mr. Gordon, author of the Independent Whig, and translator of Tacitus, has very freely censured L’Estrange.  He bestows very freely upon him the epithet of a buffoon, an ignorant droll, &c.——­He charges him with having no knowledge of the Latin tongue; and says, he is unfit to be read by any person of taste.  That his stile is full of technical terms, and of phrases picked up in the streets, from apprentices and porters.

* * * * *

Sir Roger L’Estrange translated the third Book of Tacitus, an author of whom Mr. Gordon made an entire translation.  To raise the reputation of his own performance, he has abused that of L’Estrange, in terms very unfit for a gentleman to use, supposing the censure had been true.  Sir Roger’s works indeed are often calculated for the meanest capacities, and the phrase is consequently low; but a man must be greatly under the influence of prejudice, who can discover no genius in his writings; not an intimate acquaintance with the state of parties, human life, and manners.

* * * * *

Sir Roger was but ill-rewarded by the Tories, for having been their champion; the latter part of his life was clouded with poverty, and though he descended in peace to the grave, free from political turmoils, yet as he was bowed down with age and distress, he cannot be said to have died in comfort.  He had seen much of the world, examined many characters, experienced the vicissitudes of fortune, and was as well instructed as any man that ever lived, in the important lesson of human life, viz.  That all things are vanity.

[Footnote A:  See Gen. Dict.  Art.  L’Estrange.]

[Footnote B:  Truth and Loyalty, ubi supra.]

[Footnote C:  Sir Roger L’Estrange was called, by way of derision, Cromwell’s Fidler.]

[Footnote D:  General Dictionary.]

* * * * *

Mr. Edmund Smith,

This distinguished poet was son of an eminent merchant, one Mr. Neal, by a daughter of baron Lechemere[A].  Some misfortunes of his father, which were soon followed by his death, occasioned our author’s being left very young in the care of a near relation (one who married Mr. Neal’s mother, whose name was Smith).