He died July 26, 1680, before he had completed his thirty-fourth year; and was fo worn away by a long illness, that life went out without a struggle. Lord Rochester was eminent for the vigour of his colloquial wit, and remarkable for many wild pranks and fallies of extravagance. The glare of his general character diffused itfelf upon his writings; the compofitions of a man whofe name was heard fo often were certain of attention, and from many readers certain of applaufe. This blaze of reputation is not yet quite extinguished; and his poetry still retains fome fplendour beyond that which genius has beftowed. Wood and Burnet give us reafon to believe, that much was imputed to him which he did not write. I know not by whom the original collection was made, or by what authority its genuineness was afcertained. The first edition was published in the year of his death, with an air of concealment, profeffing in the title-page to be printed at Antwerp. Of fome of the pieces, however, there is no doubt. The Imitation of Horace's Satire, the Verfes to Lord Mulgrave, the Satire againft Man, the Verfes upon Nothing, and perhaps fome others, are I believe genuine, and perhaps most of those which the collection exhibits. As he cannot be supposed to have found leisure for any courfe of continued ftudy, his pieces are commonly fhort, fuch as one fit of refolution would produce. His fongs have no particular character; they tell, like other fongs, in fmooth and eafy language, of fcorn and kindness, difmiffion and desertion, abfence, and and inconftancy, with the common-places of artificial courtship. They are commonly fmooth and eafy; but have little nature, and little fentiment. His imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not inelegant or unhappy. In the reign of Charles the Second began that adaptation, which has fince been very frequent, of ancient poetry to prefent times; and perhaps few will be found where the parallelism is better preferved than in this. The verfification is indeed fometimes careless, but it is fometimes vigorous and weighty. The strongest effort of his Mufe is his poem upon Nothing. He is not the first who has chofen this barren topick for the boaft of his fertility. There is a poem called Nihil in Latin by Passerat, a poet and critick of the fixteenth century in France; who, in his own epitaph, expreffes his zeal for good poetry thus: -Molliter offa quiefcent, Sint modo carminibus non onerata malis, His works are not common, and therefore I fhall fubjoin his verses. In examining this performance, Nothing must be confidered as having not only a negative but a kind of pofitive fignification; as I need not fear thieves, I have nothing, and nothing is a very powerful protector. In the first part of the fentence it is taken negatively; in the second it is taken pofitively, as an agent. In one of Boileau's lines it was a queftion, whether he should ufe à rien faire, or à ne rien faire; and the firft was preferred because it gave rien a fense in fome fort pofitive. Nothing can be a fubject only only in its positive sense, and such a sense is given it in the first line : Nothing, thou elder brother ev'n to shade. In this line, I know not whether he does not allude to a curious book De Umbra, by Wowerus, which, having told the qualities of Shade, concludes with a poem in which are these lines: Jam primum terram validis circumfpice clauftris. Terrafque tractufque maris, campofque liquentes Ompibus UMBRA prior. The pofitive fenfe is generally preferved with great fhill through the whole poem; though fometimes, in a fubordinate fenfe, the negative nothing is injudiciously mingled. Pafferat confounds the two fenses. Another of his moft vigorous pieces is his Lampoon on Sir Car Scrope, who, in a poem called "The Praise of Satire," had fome lines like these * He who can push into a midnight fray This was meant of Rochefter, whole buffoon conceit was, I suppose, a faying often mentioned, that every Man would be a Coward if he durft; and drew * I quote from memory. Dr. J. from from him those furious verfes; to which Scrope made in reply an epigram, ending with these lines: Thou canft hurt no man's fame with thy ill word; Of the fatire againft Man, Rochefter can only claim what remains when all Boileau's part is taken away. In all his works there is fpritelinefs and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind which study might have carried to excellence. What more can be expected from a life fpent in oftentatious contempt of regularity, and ended before the abilities of many other men began to be difplayed *? The late George Steevens, Efq. made the Selection of Rochefter's Poems which appears in Dr. Johnson's Edition; but Mr. Malone obferves, that the fame task had been performed in the early part of the laft century by Jacob Tonfon. C. Poema Poema Cl. V. JOANNIS PASSERATII, Regii in Academia Parifienfi Profefforis, Ad ornatiffimum virum ERRICUM MEMMIUM. Janus adeft, feftæ pofcunt fua dona Kalendæ, Ufque adeò ingenii nostri eft exhaufta facultas, Socra |