Lecture the Twenty-Fourth. THE EARL OF ROSCOMMON-THE EARL OF DORSET-SIR CHARLES SEDLEY-THR EARL OF ROCHESTER-THE DUKE OP BUCKINGHAM-MATTHEW PRIOR-JOHN POMFRET-JONATHAN SWIFT. T HE reign of Charles the Second was a period fraught with evil and danger to all the sober restraints, the decencies, and the domestic virtues of life. It was natural, therefore, that poetry should suffer in the general deterioration; and we find, accordingly, that some of the most eminent wits of the age prostrated the noble attribute of poetic genius to the base purposes of vice and licentiousness. Unfortunately, too, many of the most prominent members of the 'Merry Monarch's' court, were noblemen whose influence over the literature of the age was such as to enable them to control, in a great measure, its entire tone and spirit. Of these, Roscommon, Dorset, Sedley, Rochester, and Buckingham occupy the foremost rank. WENTWORTH DILLON, Earl of Roscommon, was born in Ireland, in 1633. He was the nephew of the celebrated Earl of Stratford, and after having passed the years of his childhood in his native country, was removed to the Earl's seat in Yorkshire, and placed under the tuition of Dr. Hall, afterward bishop of Norwich, by whom he was so thoroughly instructed in the Latin tongue, as to be able to write in that language with classical accuracy and elegance. When the cloud of civil strife began to gather over England, and the Earl of Stratford was singled out for an impeachment, young Dillon was, by the advice of the lord primate Usher, sent to finish his education at Caen, in Normandy, under the care and direction of the learned Bochart. He afterwards travelled over much of the continent, and at Rome remained until he had acquired so complete a knowledge of the Italian language, that he was frequently taken for a native of Italy. Soon after the Restoration, Roscommon returned to England, and was received by Charles the Second, who made him captain of the band of pensioners, in the most gracious manner. Unfortunately, in the gayeties of that corrupt age, he was tempted to indulge a violent passion for gaming; in consequence of which he frequently hazarded his life in duels, and exceeded the bounds of his moderate fortune. A dispute with the Lord Privy Seal, about part of his estate, compelled him to revisit his native country, where he had designed to remain; but the pleasures of the English court, and the friendships which he had there contracted, finally induced him to return to London. Soon after his arrival he was made master of the horse to the Duchess of York, and married the lady Frances, eldest daughter of the Earl of Burlington. Roscommon was now settled in life; and though still addicted to the vice of gambling, yet he found time to cultivate his taste for literature, and to produce a poetical Essay on Translated Verse, a translation of Horace's 'Art of Poetry,' and some minor poems. He also planned, in conjunction with Dryden, a scheme for refining the English language, and fixing its standard. But while he was meditating on this and similar topics connected with literature, the arbitrary measures of James the Second, threw the whole nation into a state of alarm; and Roscommon, dreading the result, prepared to retire to Rome, saying, 'It was best to sit near the chimney when the chamber smoked.' An attack of the gout, however, prevented his departure, and he died on the seventeenth of January, 1684, in the fifty-second year of his age. At the moment in which he expired,' says Johnson, he uttered, with an energy of voice that expressed the most fervent devotion, two lines of his own version of 'Dies Iræ': My God, my Father, and my Friend, Do not forsake me in my end! Roscommon's 'Essay on Translated Verse,' is his only production which may be said to elevate him above mediocrity. In it he inculcates, in didactic poetry, the rational principles of translation previously laid down by Cowley and Denham; and it is worthy of remark, that though Milton's 'Paradise Lost' had then been published only four years, Roscommon notices the sixth book of that great poem for its sublimity. Dryden has heaped on this poet the most lavish praise, and Pope has said that ‘every author's merit was his own;' but posterity has not confirmed these judgments. Roscommon stands on the same ground with Denham-elegant and sensible, but cold and unimpassioned. We subjoin a single passage from his 'Essay on Translated Verse,' and his version of the 'Dies Iræ.' CAUTION AGAINST FALSE PRIDE. On sure foundations let your fabric rise, And with attractive majesty surprise; Not by affected meretricious arts, But strict harmonious symmetry of parts; Which through the whole insensibly must pass With vital heat, to animate the mass. A pure, an active, an auspicious flame, And bright as heaven, from whence the blessing came. But few-0 few! souls free-ordain'd by fate, The race of gods have reach'd that envied height No rebel Titan's sacrilegious crime, By heaping hills on hills, can hither climb: The grisly ferryman of hell denied 'T will cost you dear before he 's understood. How few are they who understand him yet! Heaven shakes not more at Jove's imperial nod Sublime ideas and apt words infuse: The Muse instructs my voice, and thou inspire the Muse. ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. That day of wrath, that dreadful day. What horror will invade the mind, When the strict Judge, who would be kind, The last loud trumpet's wondrous sound, And wake the nations under ground. Nature and Death shall, with surprise, And view the Judge with conscious eyes. Then shall, with universal dread, To try the living and the dead. The Judge ascends his awful throne; O then, what interest shall I make To save my last important stake, When the most just have cause to quake? Thou mighty formidable King, Thou mercy's unexhausted spring, Some comfortable pity bring. CHARLES SACKVILLE, Earl of Dorset, was a direct descendant from Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, and was born on the twenty-fourth of January, 1637. He received his education under the guidance and instruction of a private tutor, after which he travelled upon the continent, passing most of his time in Italy, whence he returned to England just before the Restoration. He soon after entered the House of Commons, where he might have shone conspicuously, had he devoted himself to the politics of the times; but he unfortunately lived in an age when pleasure was more in fashion than business, and he applied his talents rather to looks, conversation, gallantry, and the fashionable excesses of Charles's court, than to the more important pursuits of a statesman. In the first Dutch war, he went a volunteer under the Duke of York; and the night before the naval engagement, in which Opdam, the Dutch admiral, was, with all his crew, blown up, he wrote a song, which is his best composition, and which Prior pronounced, 'one of the prettiest songs that ever was made.' On his return from the war, Dorset was made a lord of the bedchamber to Charles the Second; and on account of his rare accomplishments and distinguished politeness, was frequently, sent by that monarch, on embassies of compliment into France. When William and Mary came into power, Dorset was made lord chamberlain of the household; and as his office obliged him to take the king's pension from Dryden, it is said that he allowed him an equivalent out of his own estate. Dorset was a very liberal patron of the wits of that age, and took great pleasure in promoting their interest. He introduced Butler's 'Hudibras' to the notice of the court, was consulted by Waller, and almost idolized by Dryden. Hospitable, generous, and refined, we need not wonder at the incense which was heaped upon him by his contemporaries. His works are trifling, a few satires and songs making up the catalogue. They are eloquent, and sometimes forcible; but when a man like Prior writes of them, that there is a lustre In his verses like that of the sun in Claude Lorraine's landscapes,' it is impossible not to be struck with that gross adulation of rank and fashion which disgraced the literature of the age. Dorset died at Bath, on the nineteenth of January, 1706, in his seventieth year. To the following song we have already alluded, and we introduce it as his best performance:— |