Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

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 strange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by fre-. quent repetition detects itfelf; and the reader, learn-. ing 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 use is to fhew, that they can be played.

ROCHES

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 perfons of high rank, made mafter of arts by Lord Clarendon in perfon.

In

He travelled afterwards into France and Italy; and at his return devoted himself to the Court. 1665 he went to fea with Sandwich, and diftinguished 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 fhot.

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

and.

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 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 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.

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 disguises, and always acted with great exactnefs and dexterity the characters which he affumed.

He once erected a ftage on Tower-hill, and ha rangued the populace as a mountebank; and, having made phyfick part of his study, 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 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 course of drunken gaiety, and gross 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 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 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 course 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 Rochester, which the critick ought to read for its elegance, the philofopher for its arguments, and the faint for its picty. It were an injury to the reader to offer him an abridgement.

5

He

He died July 26, 1680, before he had completed his thirty-fourth year; and was fo worn away by a long illness, that life went out without a ftruggle.

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 diffused itfelf upon his writings; the compofitions of a man whofe name was heard fo often were certain of attention, and from many readers certain of applaufe. This blaze of reputation is not yet quite extinguished; and his poetry ftill retains fome fplendour beyond that which genius has beftowed.

Wood and Burnet give us reafon to believe, that much was imputed to him which he did not write. I know not by whom the original collection was made, or by what authority its genuineness was ascertained. The firft edition was published in the year of his death, with an air of concealment, profeffing in the title-page to be printed at Antwerp.

Of fome of the pieces, however, there is no doubt. The Imitation of Horace's Satire, the Verfes to Lord Mulgrave, the Satire againft Man, the Verfes upon Nothing, and perhaps fome others, are I believe genuine, and perhaps moft of those which the collection exhibits.

As he cannot be supposed to have found leisure for any courfe of continued ftudy, his pieces are commonly fhort, fuch as one fit of refolution would produce.

His fongs have no particular character; they tell, like other fongs, in fmooth and eafy language, of fcorn and kindness, difmission and defertion, abfence,

and

« AnteriorContinuar »