The diction of this poem is grofsly 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 heroick measure was not rather chofen. To the critical fentence of Dryden the higheft 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 heroick, the diction should still remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural compofition. If he preferred a general ftatelinefs both of found and words, he can be only understood 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 used 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 juftnefs of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless verfification, it will only be faid, "Pauper videri Cinna vult, & eft pauper." The meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may juftly doom them to perish together.

Nor even though another Butler fhould arife, would another Hudibras obtain the fame regard. Burlesque confifts in a difproportion between the ftyle and the fentiments, or between the adventitious fentiments and the fundamental fubject. It therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principal of corruption. All difproportion is unnatural; and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a strange thing; but when it is no longer ftrange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects itfelf; and the reader, learning in time what he is to expect, lays down his book, as the fpectator turns away from a fecond exhibition of those tricks, of which the only use is to fhew, that they can be played.

ROCHES

ROCHESTER.

JOHN WILMOT, afterwards Earl of Rochefter,

the fon of Henry Earl of Kochefter, 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 perfons of high rank, made mafter of arts by Lord Clarendon in perfon.

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He travelled afterwards into France and Italy; and at his return devoted himfelf to the Court. 1665 he went to fea with Sandwich, and distinguished himself 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 meffage of reproof to fend to one of his captains, could find no man ready to carry it but Wilmot, who, in an open boat, went and returned amidft the ftorm of shot.

But his reputation for bravery was not lafting; he was reproached with flinking away in ftreet quarrels,

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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 vicious company, by which his principles were corrupted, and his manners depraved. He loft all fenfe of religious reftraint; and, finding it not convenient to admit the authority of laws which he was refolved not to obey, fheltered his wickedness behind infidelity.

As he excelled in that noify and licentious merriment which wine excites, 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 himfelf.

In this ftate he played many frolicks, which it is not for his honour that we fhould remember, and which are not now diftinctly known. He often purfued low amours in mean disguifes, and always acted with great exactnefs 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 fuccessfully.

Ile 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 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 amused 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 course of drunken gaiety, and grofs fenfuality, with intervals of ftudy perhaps yet more criminal, with an avowed contempt of all decency and order, a total difregard of every moral, and a refolute denial of every religious obligation, he lived worthlefs and useless, 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 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 reasonableness of moral duty, and the truth of Christianity, as produced a total change both of his manners and opinions. The account of thofe falutary conferences is given 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.

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