WILLIAM, an English critic and poet, the son of Joseph Walsh, Esq. of Abberley in Worcestershire, was born in 1663. He became a gentleman commoner of Wadham College, Oxford, but left the university without taking a degree. His writings are to be found among the works of the Minor Poets, printed in 1749. Johnson says, "he has more elegance than vigour, and seldom rises higher than to be pretty." He was made gentleman of the horse in Queen Anne's reign, and died in 1707–8. He was the friend of Dryden and of Pope, the former of whom esteemed him the best critic then living; and Pope says of him in his Essay on Criticism, that he had "the clearest head and the sincerest heart."