Sir ROGER L'ESTRANGE.
Reading edition
And so we have reckoned up all the most Eminent Poets which have come to our knowledge, craving pardon for those we have omitted. We shall conclude all with Sir Roger L'Strange, one whose Pen was never idle in asserting the Royal Cause, as well before the King's Restoration, against his open Enemies, as since that time against his Feigned Friends. Those who shall consider the Number and Greatness of his Books, will admire he should ever write so many, and those who have Read them, considering the Stile and Method they are writ in, will more admire he should Write so well. And because some people may imagine his Works not to be so many as he hath written, we will give you a Catalogue of as many as we can remember of them.
Collections In Defence of the King. Tolleration Discussed. Relapsed Apostate. Apology for Protestants. Richard against Baxter. Tyranny and Popery. Growth of Knavery. Reformed Catholique. Free-born Subjects. The Case Put. Seasonable Memorials. Answer to the Appeal. No Papist. The Shammer Shamm'd. Account Cleared. Reformation Reformed. Dissenters Sayings in Two Parts. Notes on Colledge. Citizen and Bumkin in Two Parts. Further Discovery of the Plot. Discovery on Discovery. Narrative of the Plot. Zekiel and Ephraim. Appeal to the King and Parliament. Papist in Masquerade. Answer to the Second Character of a Popish Successor.
These Twenty Six, with divers others, he writ in Quarto; Besides which he wrote divers others, viz.
The History of the Plot, in Folio. Quevedo's Visions Englished, Octavo. Erasmus's Coloquies Eng.. Oct. Seneca's Morals, Oct. Cicero's Offices in English. The Guide to Eternity, in Twelves. Five Love Letters from a Nun to a Cave, &c. The Holy Cheat. Caveat to the Cavaliers. Plea for the Caveat and the Author.
Besides his indefatigable pains taken in writing the Observator, a Work, which for Vindicating the Royal Interest, and undeceiving the People, considering the corruption of the Times, of as great use and behoof as may be, mens minds having been before so poysoned by Fanatical Principles, that it is almost an Herculean Work to reduce them again by Reason, or as we may more properly say, to Reason. Of which useful Work he hath done already Two large Volumes, and a Third almost compleated, his Pen being never weary in Service of his Country.
But should I go about to enumerate all the Works of this worthy Gentleman, I should run my self into an irrecoverable Labyrinth. Nor is he less happy in his Verse than Prose, which for Elegancy of Language, and quickness of Invention, deservedly entitles him to the honour of a Poet; and therefore I shall forbear to write more of him, since what I can do upon that account, comes infinitely far short of his deservings.