ROCHESTER.

JOHN 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 school 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.

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 VOL. I.

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by uncommon intrepidity; and the next summer served again on board Sir Edward Spragge, who, in the heat of the engage ment, 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 amidst the ftorm of fhot.

But his reputation for bravery was not lasting: he was reproached with flinking away in ftreet quarrels, and leaving his companions to shift 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 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 wickednefs behind infidelity.

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As he excelled in that noify and licentious merriment which wine incites, his companions eagerly encouraged him in excess, 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.

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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 difguifes, 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 fuccessfully.

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 study: he read what is confidered as polite learning fo much, that he is mentioned by Wood as the greatest scholar of all the nobility. Some times he retired into the country, and amused himself with writing libels, in which he did not pretend to confine himself to truth.

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His favourite author in French was Boileau, and in English Cowley.

Thus in a course 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 disregard to 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 voluptuoufness; till, at the age of one and thirty, he had exhausted the fund of life, and reduced himself to a ftate of weakness and decay.

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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 course of his life, and from whom he received fuch conviction of the reasonablenefs of moral duty, and the truth of Christianity, as produced a total change both of his manners and opinions. The account of those falutary conferences is given by Burnet, in a book intituled, Some Paffages of the Life and Death of John Earl of Rochester; 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 so worn away by a long illness, that life went out without a struggle.

Lord Rochefter, 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 itfef upon his writings; the compofitions of U 3

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