g names and titles; Winstanley is the amateur literary
historian, seeking out the verse itself, arranging it in chronological
order, and trying, by his dim lights, to pass judgment upon it.

WILLIAM RILEY PARKER
_Indiana University_
_12 March 1962_

[Illustration: London Printed for Samuel Manship at the Black Bull in
Cornhill near the Royall Exchange.]

THE
LIVES
Of the most Famous
English Poets,

OR THE
Honour of _PARNASSUS_;

In a Brief
ESSAY
OF THE
WORKS and WRITINGS
of above Two Hundred of them, from the
Time of K. _WILLIAM_ the Conqueror,

To the Reign of His Present Majesty
King JAMES II.

_Marmora_ Maeonij _vincunt Monumenta Libelli_;
_Vivitur ingenio, extera Mortis erunt_.

Written by _WILLIAM WINSTANLEY_, Author of
the _English Worthies_.

Licensed, _June_ 16, 1685. Rob. Midgley.

_LONDON_,

Printed by _H. Clark_, for Samuel Manship at the
Sign of the _Black Bull_ in _Cornhil_, 1687.

* * * * *

TO THE WORSHIPFUL

Francis Bradbury, Esq;

The Judicious Philosopher _Philo-Judaeus,_ in his Book _De Plantatione_
Noe, saith; _That when God had made the whole World's Mass, he created
Poets to celebrate and set out the Creator himself, and all his
Creatures:_ such a high Estimate had he of those Genius of brave Verse.
Another saith, that Poets were the first _Politicians_, the first
_Philosophers_, and the first _Historiographers_. And although Learning
and Poetick Skill were but very rude in this our Island, when it
flourished to the height in _Greece_ and _Rome_, yet since hath it made
such improvement, that we come not behind any Nation in the World, both
in Grandity and Gravity, in Smoothness and Propriety, in Quickness and
Briefness; so that for _Skill, Variety, Efficacy_ and _Sweetness_, the
four material points required in a Poet, our _English_ Sons of
_Apollo,_ and Darlings of the _Delian Deity,_ may compare, if not
exceed them

_Whose victorious Rhime,_
_Revenge their Masters Death,_
_and conquer Time_.

And indeed what is it that so masters Oblivion, and causeth the Names
of the dead to live, as the divine Strains of sacred Poesie? How are
the Names forgotten of those mighty Monarchs, the Founders of the
_Egyptian Pyramids_, when that _Ballad-Poet, Thomas Elderton_, who did
arm himself with Ale (as old Father _Ennius_ did with Wine) is
remembred in Mr. _Cambden's Remains?_ having this made to his Memory,

_Hic s