ROCHESTER.
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ohn Wilmot, afterwards earl of Rochester, the son of Henry, earl ofRochester, better known by the title of lord Wilmot, so often mentionedin Clarendon's History, was born April 10, 1647, at Ditchley, inOxfordshire. After a grammatical education at the school of Burford, heentered a nobleman into Wadham college in 1659, only twelve years old;and, in 1661, at fourteen, was, with some other persons of high rank,made master of arts by lord Clarendon in person. He travelled afterwards into France and Italy; and, at his return,devoted himself to the court. In 1665 he went to sea with Sandwich, anddistinguished himself at Bergen by uncommon intrepidity; and the nextsummer served again on board sir Edward Spragge, who, in the heat of theengagement, having a message of reproof to send 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 storm of shot. But his reputation for bravery was not lasting: he was reproached withslinking away in street quarrels, and leaving his companions to shift, asthey could, without him; and Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, has left astory of his refusal to fight him. He had very early an inclination to intemperance, which he totallysubdued in his travels; but, when he became a courtier, he unhappilyaddicted himself to dissolute and vitious company, by which hisprinciples were corrupted, and his manners depraved. He lost all senseof religious restraint; and, finding it not convenient to admit theauthority of laws, which he was resolved not to obey, sheltered hiswickedness behind infidelity. As he excelled in that noisy and licentious merriment which wine incites,his companions eagerly encouraged him in excess, and he willinglyindulged it; till, as he confessed to Dr. Burnet, he was for five yearstogether continually drunk, or so much inflamed by frequent ebriety, asin no interval to be master of himself. In this state he played many frolicks, which it is not for his honourthat we should remember, and which are not now distinctly known. Heoften pursued low amours in mean disguises, and always acted with greatexactness and dexterity the characters which he assumed. He once erected a stage on Tower hill, and harangued the populace as amountebank; and, having made physick part of his study, is said to havepractised it successfully. He was so much in favour with king Charles, that he was made one of thegentlemen of the bedchamber, and comptroller of Woodstock park. Having an active and inquisitive mind, he never, except in his paroxysmsof intemperance, was wholly negligent of study: he read what isconsidered as polite learning so much, that he is mentioned by Wood asthe greatest scholar of all the nobility. Sometimes he retired into thecountry, and amused himself with writing libels, in which he did notpretend to confine himself to truth. His favourite author in French was Boileau, and in English Cowley. Thus in a course of drunken gaiety, and gross sensuality, with intervalsof study, perhaps, yet more criminal, with an avowed contempt of alldecency and order, a total disregard of every moral, and a resolutedenial of every religious obligation, he lived worthless and useless, andblazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness, till, atthe age of one-and-thirty, he had exhausted the fund of life, and reducedhimself to a state of weakness and decay. At this time he was led to an acquaintance with Dr. Burnet, to whom helaid open, with great freedom, the tenour of his opinions, and thecourse of his life, and from whom he received such conviction of thereasonableness of moral duty, and the truth of Christianity, as produceda total change both of his manners and opinions. The account of thosesalutary conferences is given by Burnet in a book entitled, Some Passagesof the Life and Death of John, Earl of Rochester, which the critick oughtto read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and thesaint for its piety. It were an injury to the reader to offer him anabridgment. He died July 26, 1680, before he had completed his thirty-fourth year;and was so worn away by a long illness, that life went out without astruggle. Lord Rochester was eminent for the vigour of his colloquial wit, andremarkable for many wild pranks and sallies of extravagance. The glare ofhis general character diffused itself upon his writings; the compositionsof a man whose name was heard so often, were certain of attention, andfrom many readers certain of applause. This blaze of reputation is notyet quite extinguished; and his poetry still retains some splendourbeyond that which genius has bestowed. Wood and Burnet give us reason to believe, that much was imputed to himwhich he did not write. I know not by whom the original collection wasmade, or by what authority its genuineness was ascertained. Thefirst edition was published in the year of his death, with an air ofconcealment, professing, in the titlepage, to be printed at Antwerp. Of some of the pieces, however, there is no doubt: the Imitation ofHorace's Satire, the Verses to lord Mulgrave, Satire against Man, theVerses upon Nothing, and, perhaps, some others, are, I believe, genuine;and, perhaps, most of those which the late collection exhibits[67]. As he cannot be supposed to have found leisure for any course ofcontinued study, his pieces are commonly short, such as one fit ofresolution would produce. His songs have no particular character; they tell, like other songs,in smooth and easy language, of scorn and kindness, dismission anddesertion, absence and inconstancy, with the commonplaces of artificialcourtship. They are commonly smooth and easy; but have little nature, andlittle sentiment. His Imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not inelegant or unhappy. In thereign of Charles the second began that adaptation, which has since beenvery frequent, of ancient poetry to present times; and, perhaps, few willbe found where the parallelism is better preserved than in this. Theversification is, indeed, sometimes careless, but it is sometimesvigorous and weighty. The strongest effort of his muse is his poem upon Nothing. He is not thefirst who has chosen this barren topick for the boast of his fertility.There is a poem called Nihil in Latin, by Passerat, a poet and critick ofthe sixteenth century, in France; who, in his own epitaph, expresses hiszeal for good poetry thus:
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