THE lives of literary men, who silently found their claims to distinction in privacy and retirement, seldom abound with those materials which make biography a study of so much interest and delight. The reason is obvious. It is not till their works are known and admired, that their characters become objects of solicitude to the world; and as a just appreciation of an author's labours commonly devolves upon posterity, cu• riosity is oftentimes excited, when the sources of information are neither copious nor authentic. Hence arises that paucity of interest which we frequently discern in lives devoted to the service of science and learning. But circumstances of a more melancholy nature have obscured the history of the eminent writer of whom we are pre

sently to speak, whose intercourse with society was seldom restrained by the motives we have just alluded to, nor was he debarred from the sphere even of rank and fashion. In this narrative, whatever has been transmitted to us by various bio. graphers, has been collected and embodied; yet such is the deficiency of data, that much must unavoidably be left to uncertainty and conjec. ture.

{Thomas OTWAY was born March 3rd, 1651, at Trotton, near Midhurst, Sussex, upon the borders of the river Arun*Ile was the only son of ibe Rey. Humphrey Otway, rector of Wolbeding,

* To this circumstance Collins alludes, in his beautiful “ Ode to Pity.”

But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Ilissus' distant side?

Deserted stream and mute!
Wild Arun too has heard thy strains,
And Echo midst

my

native pluins
Been sooth'd by Pity's lute:
There first the wren thy myrtles shed
On gentlest Otway's infant head;

To him thy cell was shown;
And while he sung the female lieart
With youth's soft notes unspoil'd by art,

Thy turtles mix'd their own,