Sprat

From Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets series, published in 3 volumes between 1779 and 1781.

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Thomas Sprat was born in 1636, at Tallaton in Devonshire, the son of a clergyman; and having been educated, as he tells of himself, not at Westminster or Eton, but at a little school by the church-yard side, became a commoner of Wadham college, in Oxford, in 1651; and, being chosen scholar next year, proceeded through the usual academical course, and, in 1657, became master of arts. He obtained a fellowship, and commenced poet.

In 1659, his poem on the death of Oliver was published, with those of Dryden and Waller. In his dedication to Dr. Wilkins, he appears a very willing and liberal encomiast, both of the living and the dead. He implores his patron's excuse of his verses, both as falling "so infinitely below the full and sublime genius of that excellent poet who made this way of writing free of our nation," and being "so little equal and proportioned to the renown of the prince on whom they were written; such great actions and lives deserving to be the subject of the noblest pens and most divine phansies." He proceeds: "Having so long experienced your care and indulgence, and been formed, as it were, by your own hands, not to entitle you to any thing which my meanness produces, would be not only injustice, but sacrilege."

He published, the same year, a poem on the Plague of Athens; a subject of which it is not easy to say what could recommend it. To these he added, afterwards, a poem on Mr. Cowley's death.

After the restoration he took orders, and by Cowley's recommendation was made chaplain to the duke of Buckingham, whom he is said to have helped in writing the Rehearsal. He was likewise chaplain to the king.

As he was the favourite of Wilkins, at whose house began those philosophical conferences and inquiries, which in time produced the Royal Society, he was consequently engaged in the same studies, and became one of the fellows; and when, after their incorporation, something seemed necessary to reconcile the publick to the new institution, he undertook to write its 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 Sorbière'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.