Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

Italian, and the worst in English. He was only two hours about it. It begins thus: "Dear happy groves, and you the dark

cc retreat

"Of filent horrour, Reft's eternal feat." From these lines, which are fince fomewhat mended, it appears that he did not think a work of two hours fit to endure the eye of criticism without revisal.

When Mrs. Phillips was in Ireland, fome ladies that had seen her tranflation of Pompey, refolved to bring it on the ftage at Dublin; and, to promote their defign, Lord Rofcommon gave them a prologue, and Sir Edward Dering an epilogue; "which," fays fhe, "are "the best performances of thofe kinds I ever "faw." If this is not criticism, it is at least gratitude. The thought of bringing Cæfar and Pompey into Ireland, the only country over which Cæfar never had any power, is lucky.

Of Roscommon's works, the judgement of the publick seems to be right. He is elegant, but not great; he never labours after exquifite beauties, and feldom falls into grofs faults. His verfification is smooth, but rarely vigorous, and his rhymes are remarkably exact. He improved tafte, if he did not enlarge knowledge, and may be numbered among the benefactors to English literature.

ROCHESTER,

JOHN

OHN WILMOT, afterwards earl of Rochester, the fon of Henry earl of Rochester, better known by the title of Lord Wilmot, fo often mentioned in Clarendon's Hiftory, was born in April, 1648, at Ditchley in Oxfordfhire. After a grammatical education at the fchool of Burford, he entered a nobleman into Wadham College in 1659, only eleven years old; and in 1661, at thirteen, was, with fome other perfons of high rank, made master of arts by lord Clarendon in perfon.

He travelled afterwards into France and Italy; and, at his return, devoted himself to a Court. In 1665 he went to fea with Sandwich, and diftinguished himself at Bergen by uncommon intrepidity; and the next fummer ferved again on board Sir Edward Spragge, who, in the heat of the engagement, having a message of reproof to fend to one of his captains, could find no man ready to carry it but Wilmot, who, in an open boat, went and returned amidst the ftorm of fhot.

But his reputation for bravery was not lafting he was reproached with flinking away in ftreet quarrels, and leaving his companions to shift as they could without him; and Sheffield duke of Buckingham has left a story of his refufal to fight him.

He

He had very early an inclination to intemperance, which he totally fubdued in his travels; but when he became a courtier, he unhappily addicted himself to diffolute and vitious company, by which his principles were corrupted, and his manners depraved. He loft all fente of religious restraint; and, finding it not convenient to admit the authority of laws which he was refolved not to obey, sheltered his wickedness behind infidelity.

As he excelled in that noify and licentious merriment which wine incites, his companions eagerly encouraged him in excefs, and he willingly indulged it; till, as he confeffed to Dr. Burnet, he was for five years together continually drunk, or fo much inflamed by frequent ebriety, as in no interval to be mafter of himfelf.

In this state he played many frolicks, which it is not for his honour that we should remember, and which are not now distinctly known. He often pursued low amours in mean disguises, and always acted with great exactness and dexterity the characters which he affumed.

He once erected a stage on Tower-hill, and harangued the populace as a mountebank; and, having made phyfick part of his study, is faid to have practifed it fuccefsfully.

He was fo much in favour with King Charles, that he was made one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, and comptroller of Woodstock Park.

Having an active and inquifitive mind, he never, except in his paroxyfms of intemperance, was wholly negligent of ftudy: he read what is confidered as polite learning fo much, that he is mentioned

mentioned by Wood as the greatest scholar of all the nobility. Sometimes he retired into the country, and amused himself with writing libels, in which he did not pretend to confine himself to truth.

His favourite author in French was-Boileau, and in English Cowley.

Thus in a course of drunken gaiety, and grofs fenfuality, with intervals of study perhaps yet more criminal, with an avowed contempt of all decency and order, a total disregard to every moral, and a refolute denial of every religious obligation, he lived worthlefs and ufelefs, and blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuoufnefs; till, at the age of one and thirty, he had exhausted the fund of life, and reduced himself to a state of weakness and decay.

At this time he was led to an acquaintance with Dr. Burnet, to whom he laid open with great freedom the tenour of his opinions, and the course of his life, and from whom he received fuch conviction of the reasonableness of moral duty, and the truth of Christianity, as produced a total change both of his manners and opinions. The account of those falutary conferences is given by Burnet, in a book intituled, Some Paffages of the Life and Death of John earl of Rochefter; which the critick ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the faint for its piety. It were an injury to the reader to offer him an abridgement.

He died July 26, 1680, before he had completed his thirty-third year; and was fo worn

away

« ÖncekiDevam »