(John), an ingenious and polite writer, was born in 1677. In the earliest parts of his youth, he cultivated the sister-arts, poetry, drawing, and music, in each of which he by turns made considerable progress; but followed those and his other studies only as agreeable amusements, under frequent confinement on account of his ill state of health. The lord Chancellor Cowper made him secretary for the commissions of the peace without his knowledge, and distinguished him with singular marks of his esteem. He continued in the same employment under the earl of Macclesfield, and held it to the day of his death; which happened in 1719, the very night in which his tragedy, intitled The siege of Damascus, was first acted. He was then 42. He translated Fontenelle’s dialogues of the dead, Vertot’s revolutions of Portugal, and the letters of Abelard and Eloisa. He gave a very accurate edition of Spencer’s works, with his life, a glossary, and remarks; and wrote several papers in the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian. Mr Duncombe, who married his sister, collected his poems and essays in 2 vols 12mo, in 1735.