HE WAS OF AN ADMIRABLE PREGNANCY OF WIT, AND THAT PREGNANCY MUCH IMPROVED BY CONTINUAL STUDY FROM HIS CHILDHOOD: BY WHICH HE HAD GOTTEN SUCH A PROMPTNESS IN EXPRESSING HIS MIND, THAT HIS EXTEMPORAL SPEECHES WERE LITTLE INFERIOR

As ANTIPATER Sidonius was famous for extemporal verse in Greek, and OVID for his Quicquid conabar dicere versus erat: so was our TARLETON, of whom Doctor CASE, that learned physician, thus speaketh in the Seventh Book and 17th chapter of his Politics.

And so is now our witty [THOMAS] WILSON, who, for learning and extemporal wit in this faculty, is without compare or compeer; as to his great and eternal commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the Swan, on the Bank Side.

'Tis pretty, pretty, tell him 'twas extemporal.

[120] An extemporal play by the famous Richard Tarleton.

" This extemporal comic part seems to have been held essential to dramatic representation, in most countries in Europe, during the infancy of the art.

Afterwards he contracted at Venice an acquaintance with Aldus Manutius, by whom he was introduced to the learned of that city: then visited Padua, where he engaged in another publick disputation, beginning his performance with an extemporal poem in praise of the city and the assembly then present, and concluding with an oration equally unpremeditated in commendation of ignorance.