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1672 - Born on the 1st of May in Milston, Wiltshire.
1693 - He addressed a poem to John Dryden the former Poet Laureate.
1694 - His first major work, a book about the lives of English poets, was published.
1699 - He received a pension of £300 to enable him to travel widely in Europe the continent.
1702 - He heard of the death of William III, an event which lost him his pension.
1704 - He was commissioned to write and produce a poem "The Campaign".
1705 - He was appointed Under-Secretary of State and accompanied Halifax on a mission to Hanover.
1708 - He became MP for Malmesbury in his home county of Wiltshire.
- He was appointed as Chief Secretary for Ireland and Keeper of the Records of that country.
1712 - He wrote his most famous work of fiction, a play entitled Cato, a Tragedy.
1716 - He married the Dowager Countess of Warwick.
1717 - He served Secretary of State for the Southern Department for one year.
1718 - He was forced to resign as secretary of state because of his poor health.
1719 - He remained an MP until his death at Holland House on the 17th of June, in his 48th year, and was
buried in Westminster Abbey.
Page last updated: 6:31pm, 21st May '07 |
- "Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."
- "Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life."
- "I value my garden more for being full [of] blacbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs."
- "The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship.
To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover."
- "What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable."
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