the housewife brings in fresh supplies,
To gratify the taste, and please the eyes.
She on the surface lumps of butter lays,
Which, melting with the heat, its beams displays;
From whence it causes wonder to behold
A silver soil bedeck'd with streams of gold!

[Footnote 1: The design of this work, was to ridicule Sir Hans Sloan's
writings, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal-Society; of
which Dr. Sloan was secretary. This work, of Dr. King's, which is now
become very scarce, is one of the severest and merriest Satires that
ever was written in Prose.]

* * * * *

THOMAS SPRAT (Bishop of ROCHESTER)

Was descended from a very worthy, though obscure family, being the son
of a private country minister; but his great merit raised him to that
eminent station in the church, wherein he long presided, and was
deservedly accounted one of the most considerable prelates of his time.
The Oxford antiquary informs us, that on the 16th of January 1654, he
was entered in Wadham-College, where he pursued his studies with the
closest application, and distinguished himself by his prudent and
courteous behaviour.

On the 3d of July 1669, Mr. Sprat took his master of arts degree, and
the same day, commenced doctor in divinity. He had not long been in
holy orders, till he was introduced at court, and by a happy power in
conversation, so attracted the regard of Charles the IId. that he was
considered as a man standing fair for preferment. In 1683, broke out the
Rye-house Plot, a relation of the particulars of which, Charles the IId.
commanded Dr. Sprat to draw up. This the Dr. in a letter to lord Dorset,
informs us, he did with great unwillingness, and would have been
impelled by no other consideration, than that of a royal command. The
reason he executed these orders with so much reluctance, was, because
many of the most popular men in the nation were either concerned
themselves, or had some relations engaged, so that an account of a plot
thus supported, must expose he writer to partial or popular resentments.

He requested the king, that he might be permitted to spare some names,
and to represent the behaviour of others in as candid a light as
possible, in which request his majesty indulged him; but notwithstanding
all the candour he observed, and the most dispassionate representation
of facts, yet his composing this relation, was brought against him as a
crime, for which an opposit