fluence of a propitious planet; and when the king was prifoner in Carifbrook Caftle, an aftrologer was confulted what hour would be found moft favourable to an escape.

What effect this poem had upon the publick, whether it fhamed impofture, or teclaim d credulity, is not eafily determined. Cheats can feldom ftand long against laughter. It is certain that the credit of planetary intelligence wore faft away; though fome men of knowledge, and Dryden among them, continued to believe that conjunctions and oppofitions had a great part in the diftribution of good or evil, and in the government of fublunary things.

Poetical Action ought to be probable upon certain fuppofitions, and fuch probability as burlefque requires is here violated only by one incident. Nothing can thew more plainly the neceffity of doing fomething, and the difficulty of finding fomething to do, than that Butler was reduced to transfer to his hero the flagellation of Sancho, not the most agreeable fiction of Cervantes; very fuitable indeed to the manners of that age and nation, which afcribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but fo remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibraftic time, that judgement and imagination are alike offended.

The diction of this poem is groffly familiar, and the numbers purpofely neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts by their native excellence fecure themfelves from violation, being fuch as mean language cannot exprefs. The mode of verfification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets that the heroic measure was not rather

chofen.

chofen. To the critical fentence of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, were not his decifions often precipitate, and his opinions immature. When he wished to change the measure, he probably would have been willing to change more. if he intended that, when the numbers were heroic, the diction fhould ftili remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural compofition. If he preferred a general stateliness both of found and words, he can be only underftood to with Butler had undertaken a different work.

The measure is quick, fpritely, and colloquial, fuitable to the vulgarity of the words and the levity of the fentiments. But fuch numbers and fuch diction can gain regard only when they are ufed by a writer whofe vigour of fancy and copioufnefs of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence' of the novelty and juftness of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another that conveys common thoughts in caręless verfification, it will only be faid, Pauper "vider Cinna vult, & eft pauper." The meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may justly doom them to perith together.

Nor even though another Butler fhould arife, would another Hudibras obtain the fame regard. Burlesque confifts in a disproportion between the ftyle and the fentiments, or between the adventitious fentiments and the fundamental fubject. It therefore, like al bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption.

ruption. All difproportion is unnatural; and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a ftrange thing; but when it is no longer ftrange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects itself; and the reader, leaning in time what he is to expect, lays down his book, as the fpectator turns away from a fecond exhibition of thofe tricks, of which the only ufe is to fhew, that they can be played.

ROCHESTER.

JOHN WILMOT, afterwards Earl of Rochefter, 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 into Wadham College in 1659, only twelve years old; and in 1661, at fourteen, was, with fome other pertons 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 himself at Bergen by uncommon intrepi dity; and the next fummer served again on-board Sir Edward Spragge, who, in the heat of the engagement having a meffage of reproof to fend to one of his captains, could find no man ready to it but Wilmot, who, in an open boat, went and returned amidst the storm of shot.

carry

But his reputation for bravery was not lafting; he was reproached with flinking away in street quarrels, and leaving his companions to fhift as they could without him; and Sheffield Duke of Buckingham has left a ftory of his refufal 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 man. ners depraved. He lost all fente of religious restraint; and, finding it not convenient to admit the authority of laws which he was refolved not to obey, theltered his wickednefs 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 should remember, and which are not now diftin&tly known. He often purfued low amours in mean difguifes, and always

acted

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 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 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 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 exhaufted the fund of life, and reduced himself to a state of weaknefs 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 reafonablenefs of moral duty, and the truth of Chriftianity, as produced a total VOL. I. change

K