66

Orrery.

Roger Boyle, 1621–1679, Earl of Orrery, and son of the 'Great Earl of Cork," like most of the noble family to which he belonged, cultivated authorship.

The Earl's works are rather numerous, but are not accounted as of a very high order. They are mostly poetical. The following is a partial list: Tragedies, Henry V., The Black Prince, Herod the Great, Triphon, Mustapha, Altemira; Two Comedies, Mr. Anthony, and Guzman; Poems on the Fasts and Festivals of the Church; Poem on the Death of Cowley; Parthenissa, a Romance; A Treatise on the Art of War.

Dorset.

Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, 1637-1706, a nobleman of gay life and easy manners, wrote a few songs which were very popular, and some satires which "sparkled with wit as splendid as that of Butler."- Macaulay.

Dorset's most celebrated song, "To all you ladies now on land," was written at sea, the night before a naval engagement. He was liberal and judicious in the use of his money among men of letters, and was a general favorite. He was "an intellectual voluptuary, and a master of all those pleasing branches of knowledge which can be acquired without severe application."— Macaulay.

Rochester.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, 1647–1680, was a gay and profligate courtier of this period, who was celebrated in his day for his wit, and whose life and writings were equally at variance with religion and morality.

His Career.- Rochester was educated at Oxford; travelled on the continent; and fought against the Dutch. His recklessness and dissipation at Court brought him prematurely to the grave. During his life he was admired as a wit and poet, but on his death-bed, being converted by the efforts of Bishop Burnet, he gave strict orders that his profane writings should be destroyed. Notwithstanding this prohibition, there appeared, in 1780, a volume purporting to be a collection of his poems. Several other editions have appeared subsequently. Under the circumstances, it is not possible to speak confidently on the genuineness of the collections as a whole. Some of the pieces are undoubtedly Rochester's, such as the Imitation of Horace's Satire, Satire against Man, Verses upon Nothing. The last is generally considered the best. The poems do not sustain their author's reputation, and have little to recommend them to readers of the present day. Their obscenity is repulsive, and their so-called wit, although it flashes at times, is in the main tedious.

WILLIAM CAVENDISH, Duke of Devonshire, 1610-1707, a statesman of high rank, is also known as an author. Works: Ode on the Death of Queen Mary; An Allusion to the Bishop of Cambray's Supplement to Homer, a Poem; Fragments on the Peerage:

Speeches. "He was the friend and companion, and at the same time the equal, of Ormond, Dorset, Roscommon, and all the noble ornaments of that reign of wit is which he passed his youth."- Campbell.

SIR GEORGE ETHERIDGE, 1636–1690, was one of those gay and dissolute writers and wits who made the reign of Charles II. both famous and infamous.

Etheridge began studying for the bar, but abandoned the law, and betook himself to the drama. He wrote The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub; She Would if She Could, a Comedy; The Man of the Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter, a Comedy, etc. The last was his most successful piece. "It is, perhaps, the most elegant comedy, and contains more of the real manners of high life than any one the English stage was ever adorned with."- Biog. Dram. "Sir George Etheridge was as thorough a fop as aver I saw; he was exactly his own Sir Fopling Flutter." - Spence's Anecdotes.

Yet this man was knighted, and was sent as British Minister to Ratisbon. After a gay evening party given by him at Ratisbon, he is said to have fallen down stairs and broken his neck while taking leave of his guests.

SIR WILLIAM KILLIGREW, LL D., 1605-1693, was an active royalist in the times of the Stuarts, and at the Restoration was First Vice-Chamberlain to Charles II. Killigrew gave much time to literary pursuits. Among his works are the following: Pandora, a Comedy: Selindra, a Tragi-Comedy; Ormasdes, a Tragi-Comedy; The Siege of Urbin, a Tragi-Comedy; The Imperial Tragedy; Midnight and Daily Thoughts, a religious work, etc.

HENRY VAUGHAN, 1621-1695, holds a respectable rank among the second-class poets of that day.

Vaughan was a Welshman, born in Brecknockshire, and had something of the enthusiasm characteristic of his race. He was bred to the law, but abandoned it for physic. In the earlier part of his career he wrote translations from Juvenal and other classical authors. Later in life he became deeply religions, and wrote sacred lyrics: Silex Scintillans, or Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations; The Mount of Olives, or Solitary Devotions: Flores Solitudinis, or Certain Rare and Eloquent Pieces. "He is one of the hardest even of the inferior order of the school of conceit; but he has some few scattered thoughts that meet our eye amidst his harsh pages, like wild flowers on a barren heath."- Campbell. This verdict of Campbell's does scant justice to Vaughan. He certainly holds a respectable rank in the second class of sacred poets.

JOSEPH BEAUMONT, D. D., 1615-1699, an eminent poet and scholar of his day, long since forgotten, was King's Professor of Divinity, and Master of St. Peter's College, in Cambridge. His Psyche, or Love's Mystery, in twenty-four cantos, displaying the Intercourse betwixt Christ and the Soul, is a curiosity of literature, being the longest poem in our language. It contains 38.922 lines, "being considerably longer than the Fairy Queen, nearly four times the length of Paradise Lost, and five or six times as long as the Excursion." It was written "for the avoiding of mere idleness," as the task he might safeliest presume upon. without the society of books," the Puritans having driven him from his fellowship at Cambridge. The bulk of it was written in less than a year, 1647-8, and then published. A second edition, revised, with four new

cantos, was published in 1702. Pope said: "There are in it a great many flowers well worth gathering, and a man who has the art of stealing wisely, will find his account in reading it."

Some of Beaumont's Minor Poems, English and Latin, were published in 1749. They have great merit, or rather there are some very fine bits among them. Both volumes

are now scarce.

NICHOLAS BRADY, 1659–1726, an English clergyman, was the author of a translation of Virgil's Eneid into English verse, but is chiefly known by his Version of the Psalms of David, made in conjunction with Nahum Tate. Tate and Brady was for Many generations of Englishmen the only hymnal known in their church service. It did a good work in its day, and had some poetical merit, notwithstanding the abundant ridicule which has been thrown upon it, and the general contempt into which it has now fallen. (See article on Hymnody, p. 135.)

JOHN POMFRET, 1667-1703; studied at Cambridge and took orders in the Church of England. Pomfret is the author of a few poems, one of which, The Choice, was very popular in its day, but has since gone almost wholly out of fashion. It is slightly praised by Johnson, whereas Hallam speaks of it as intolerable in its tame and frigid monotony.

REV. THOMAS CREECH, 1659-1700, is known in literature by his translations from the Latin poets. He translated Lucretius and Horace, and portions of Theocritus, Ovid, Juvenal, and Plutarch. His translations are not generally ranked very high. He committed suicide, in a fit of insanity, it is supposed.

JOHN PHILIPS, 1676-1708, "the poet of the English vintage" (Macaulay) wrote a poem in tw books, On Cider, in imitation of the Georgics of Virgil; a mock-heroic poem, Splendid Shilling, in imitation of the blank verse of Paradise Lost; and a poem called Blenheim. The poem On Cider is more remarkable for its scientific accuracy than for its poetical beauty, while that on The Splendid Shilling gives pain by its application of the high-sounding phrases of Milton to common and vulgar topics.

THOMAS BROWN, 1663-1704, a facetions poet, commonly called Tom Brown, was noted equally for his skill in languages and his ribaldry. He lives in literary history, not from any inherent merit in his works, but solely because he is often named or referred to in the works of Addison, Dryden, and others of good repute.

Dramatic Writers.

Thomas Otway, 1651-1685, was a dramatic writer of considerable note, contemporary with Dryden.

Otway was educated at Oxford. He began as an actor in London, but, not meeting with much success, betook himself to writing plays, partly original, partly translations or imitations from the French.

Many of Otway's plays were very successful at the time, but only two have maintained their reputation among readers and actors of the present day, viz.: The Orphan, and Venice Preserved. Otway was improvident by nature, and died young in very indigent circumstances. His untimely fate was his own fault, rather than that of his

friends. The Orphan and Venice Preserved abound in affecting and eloquent passages that touch the sensibilities more directly, perhaps, than Shakespeare's dramas. But they have not that subtle individuality of character and expression which stamp Shakespeare's creations as a class by themselves. Otway is merely affecting; he does not reveal to us a new world of thought and sentiment.

"This [The Orphan] is one of the few plays that keep possession of the stage, and has pleased for almost a century, through all the vicissitudes of domestic fashion. Of this play nothing new can easily be said. It is a domestic tragedy drawn from middle life. Its whole power is upon the affections; for it is not written with much comprehension of thought or elegance of expression. But, if the heart is interested, many other beauties may be wanting, yet not be missed.

"A tragedy [Venice] which still continues to be one of the favorites of the public, notwithstanding the want of morality in the original design and the despicable scenes of vile comedy with which he has diversified his tragic action. . . . The work of a man not attentive to decency nor zealous for virtue, but of one who conceived forcibly, and drew originally, by consulting nature in his own breast." — Dr. Johnson, THOMAS SHADWELL, 1640-1692, is a well-known dramatic writer of this period.

Shadwell was educated at Cambridge, and abandoned the bar for the drama. In 1688 he was crowned poet laureate. Dryden ridiculed him severely in his Mac Flecknoe. Shadwell had some slight poetic ability and some wit, but was unable to finish pieces thoroughly. And not only were his plays defective; they were gross and indecent even in that age of license. Among them are The Humorists, The Libertine, The Virtuoso, Timon of Athens, The Lancashire Witches, The Squire of Alsatia, Bury Fair, &c. The Volunteers exposed the knavery of the dealers in stocks. Nahum Tate and Shadwell are ranked by Southey as the lowest of the poet laureates.

NATHANIEL LEE, 1658-1691, was a dramatist of some note, his notoriety being gained, however, as much by the irregularities of his life as by his genius.

Lee was a native of Hertfordshire, and was educated at Cambridge. Not successful as an actor, he turned his attention to play-writing. He was the author of eleven dramas, all tragedies but one. Owing to his habits of intemperance he became insane, was for a time in Bedlam, and was finally killed in a street-brawl. Lee was much lauded by some of his cotemporaries, Dryden, for instance; and has since been mercilessly condemned for his bombast and extravagance. The sounder opinion seems to be that Lee as a writer was full of faults, but also was a man of decided poetical talents, and that he might have produced works of lasting merit, had he only learned to restrain his imagination. The most popular of his dramas are Alexander, and Theodosius or The Force of Love.

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, 1639-1701, a gay courtier and wit of the reigns of Charles II. and James II., wrote the following plays: The Mulberry Garden, Antony and Cleopatra, Bellamira, Beauty the Conqueror, The Grumbler, The Tyrant King of Crete, besides numerous Songs and other short poems. He was in great repute in his day as a man of letters, but is now little known. His writings partake of the general licentiousness of his age, though not to such a degree as some.

RICHARD FLECK NOE, 1680, a dramatic poet in the time of Charles II. He wrote some plays and poems, but nothing worthy of record, and he has his place in literature because only of the scourgings given him in the satires of Dryden and Pope.

JOHN BANKS, a popular dramatic writer during the latter part of the seventeenth century. Some of his plays, running from 1677 to 1696, are the following: Rival Kings, Destruction of Troy, Virtue Betrayed, Island Queens, Unhappy Favorite, Innocent Usurper, and Cyrus the Great. "His style gives alternate specimens of vulgar meanness and of bombast. But even his dialogue is not destitute of occasional naturo and pathos; and the value of his works as acting plays is very considerable."-Knight, MRS. APHRA BEHN,- 1689, was of a good family by the name of Johnson, in the city of Canterbury. Her father being appointed Governor of Surinam, Aphra became a resident of that country, and while there became acquainted with the native prince, Oroonoko, whose story she afterwards gave in a novel of that name. On returning to England, she was married to Mr. Behn, an eminent Dutch merchant of London, and so became conversant with Dutch affairs. King Charles II. having formed a high opinion of her abilities, from conversations with her in regard to the colony of Surinam, sent her to Antwerp, in the secret service of the Government, during the progress of the Dutch war. She had a lover living at Antwerp, through whom she learned important state secrets, which she communicated to her Government. Mrs. Behn published three volumes of poems, consisting of songs and other short pieces. She wrote also seventeen plays, and translated several works from the French and the Latin. She was the author of Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister, and of Eight Love Letters, the latter being addressed to a gentleman whom she passionately loved, and with whom she corresponded under the name of Lycidas. "The Itcentiousness of Mrs. Behn's pen is a disgrace to her sex and to the language." - Allibone.

II. PHILOSOPHICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

Locke.

John Locke, 1632-1704, is one of the names always quoted in speaking of the great thinkers who have largely influenced the current of English opinion on science, morals, or religion.

His Career. Locke was the son of a captain in the Parliamentary army. After passing through the Westminster School and Oxford University, he applied himself to the study of medicine, in which science he acquired no little proficiency. His skill in prescribing for the treatment of Lord Ashley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury), in a critical disease, led to a lifelong intimacy with that nobleman and his family. Locke became thenceforward a permanent member of his lordship's household, and the tutor of his young son, afterwards celebrated as the author of The Characteristics. Locke shared in the political odium attached to his noble patron, and was obliged at one time to secrete himself on the continent to avoid being arrested on the suspicion of treasonable practices. At the Revolution, in 1688, he returned to England with other members of his party, and in the same fleet that brought over William and Mary. He received appointments