ROCHESTER.

J

OHN WILMOT, afterwards Earl of Rochester, the fon of Henry Earl of Rochefter, better known by the title of Lord Wilmot, fo often mentioned in Clarendon's Hiftory, was born April 10, 1647, at Ditchley in Oxfordshire. After a grammatical education at the fchool of Burford, he entered a nobleman imo Wadham College in 1659, only twelve years old; and in 1661, at fourteen, was, with fome other perfons of high rank, made mafter of arts by Lord Clarendon in perfon.

He travelled afterwards into France and Italy; and, at his return, devoted himself to the Court. In 1665 he went to fea with Sandwich, and diftinguished himfelf 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 meílage of reproof to fend to one of his captains, could find no man ready to carry it but Wilmot, who, in an open boar, 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 fhift as they could without him; and Sheffield Duke of Buckingham has left a story of his refusal to fight him.

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 sense 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 himself.

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

He once erected a ftage on Tower-hill, and harangued the populace as a mountebank; and, having made phyfick part of his ftudy, 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.

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Having an active and inquifitive mind, he never, except in his paroxyfins of intemperance, was wholly negligent of study: he read what is confidered as polite learning fo much, that he is mentioned by Wood as the greateft fcholar of all the nobility. Sometimes he retired into the country, and amufed 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 courfe 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 difregard to every moral, and a resolute denial of every religious obligation, he lived worthless and ufelefs, and blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuoufnefs; till, at the age of one and thirty, he had exhaufled the fund of life, and reduced himself to a ftate 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 courfe of his life, and from whom he received fuch conviction of the reasonablenefs of moral duty, and the truth of Chriftianity, as produced a total change both of his manners and opinions. The account of thofe falutary conferences is given by 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 philofopher 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-fourth year; and was fo worn away by a long illnefs, that life went out without a ftruggle.

Lord

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 diffufed itfelf upon his writings; the compofitions of a man whofe name was heard so often were certain of attention, and from many readers certain of applause. This blaze of reputation is not yet quite extinguished; and his poetry ftill retains fome splendour beyond that which genius has bestowed.

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 against Man, the Verfes upon Nothing, and perhaps fome others, are I believe genuine, and perhaps most of those which the late collection exhibits.

As he cannot be fuppofed to have found leifure for any course 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 smooth and eafy language, of fcorn and kindness, difmiffion and desertion, abfence and inconftancy, with the common places of artificial courtship. They are commonly smooth and easy; 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 be,

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gan that adapation, which has fince been very frequent, of ancient poetry to prefent times; and perhaps few will be found where the parallelifm is better preferved than in this. The verfification is indeed fometimes careless, but it is fometimes vigorous and weighty.

The ftrongest 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 Nibil in Latin by Pafferat, 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 fecond 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, becaufe it gave rien a fenfe in fome fort pofitive. Nothing can be a fubject only in its positive sense, and fuch a fenfe is given it in the firft 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 thefe lines: