Hopkins, Charles

, son of the preceding, was born at Exeter, in 1664; but his father being taken chaplain to Ireland, he received the early part of his education at Trinity college, Dublin; and afterwards was a student at Queen’s college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B. A. in 1688. The rebellion breaking out in Ireland in that year, he returned thither, and exerted his early valour in the cause of his country, religion, and liberty. When public tranquillity was restored, he came again into | Elngland, and formed an acquaintance with gentlemen of wit, whose age and genius were most agreeable to his own. In 1694 he published some “Epistolary Poems and Translations,” which may be seen in Nichols’s “Select Collec-' tion;” and in 1695 he shewed his genius as a dramatic writer, by “Pyrrhus king of Egypt,” a tragedy, to which Congreve wrote the epilogue. He published also in that year, “The History of Love,” a connection of select fables from. “Ovid’s Metamorphoses,1695; which, by the sweetness of his numbers and easiness of his thoughts, procured him considerable reputation. With Dryden in particular he became a great favourite. He afterwards published the “Art of Love,” which, Jacob says, “added to his fame, and happily brought him acquainted with the earl of Dorset, and other persons of distinction, who were fond of his company, through the agreeableness of his temper, and the pleasantry of his conversation. It was in his power to have made his fortune in any scene of life; but he was always more ready to serve others than mindful of his own affairs; and by the excesses of hard drinking, and too passionate an addiction to women, he died a martyr to the cause in the thirty-sixth year of his age.” Mr. Nichols has preserved in his collection an admirable hymn, “written about an hour before his death, when in great pain.” His “Court-Prospect,” in which many of the principal nobility are very handsomely complimented, is called by Jacoban excellent piece;” and of his other poems he adds, “that they are all remarkable for the purity of their diction, and the harmony of their numbers.” Mr. Hopkins was also the author of two other tragedies; “Boadicea Queen of Britain,1697; and “Friendship improved, or the Female Warrior,” with a humourous prologue, comparing a poet to a merchant, a comparison which will hold in most particulars except that of accumulating wealth. The author, who was at Londonderry when this tragedy came out, inscribed it to Edward Coke of Norfolk, esq. in a dedication remarkably modest and pathetic. It is dated Nov. 1, 1699, and concludes, “I now begin to experience how much the mind may be influenced by the body. My Muse is confined, at present, to a weak and sickly tenement; and the winter season will go near to overbear her, together with her household. There are storms and tempests to beat tier down, or frosts to bind her up and kill her; and she has no friend on her side but youth to hear | her through; If that can sustain the attack, and hold out till spring comes to relieve me, one use I shall make of fa<ther life shall be to shew how much I am, sir, your most devoted humble servant, C. Hopkins.

His feelings were but too accurate; he died in the course of that winter, 1700.1

1 Jacob’s Lives. Biog. Dram.-Nichos’s Teems.