vantages as most ever had. He was a graceful and well shaped perfon, tall, and well made, if not a little too flender: he was exactly well bred; and, what by a modeft behaviour natural to him, what by a civility become almoft as natural, his converfation was eafy and obliging. He had a strange vivacity of thought and vigour of expreffion; his wit had a fubtility and fublimity both, that it was fcarce imitable. His ftile was clear and ftrong; when he ufed figures, they were lively, and yet far enough out of the common road. He had made himfelf master of the ancient and modern wit, and of the modern French and Italian as well as the English. He loved to talk and write of fpeculative matters; and did it with fo fine a thread, that even thofe, who hated the subjects that his fancy ran upon, yet could not but be charmed with his way of treating them. Boileau among the French, and Cowley among the English, wits, were thofe he admired moft. Sometimes other men's thoughts mixed with his compofures but that flowed rather from the impreffions they made on him when he read them, by which they came to return on him as his own thoughts, than that he fervilely copied from any; for few men had a bolder flight of fancy, more fteadily governed by judgment, than he had. No wonder a young man fo made and fo improved was very acceptable in

a court.

Soon

Soon after his coming thither, he laid hold on the firft occafion that offered to fhew his readiness to hazard his life in the defence and fervice of his country. In winter, 1665, he went with the earl of Sandwich to fea, when he was fent to lie for a Dutch East-India fleet; and was in the Revenge, commanded by Sir Thomas Tiddiman, when the attack was made on the port of Bergen in Norway, the Dutch fhips having got into that port. It was as defperate an attempt as ever was made. During the whole action, the earl of Rochefter fhewed as brave and as refolute a courage as was poffible: a person of honour told me he heard the lord Clifford, who was in the fame fhip, often magnify his courage, at that time very highly. Nor did the rigours of the season, the hardnefs of the voyage, and the extreme danger he had been in, deter him from running the like on the very next occafion; for the fummer following he went to fea again, without communicating his defign to his nearest relations. He went on-board the fhip commanded by Sir Edward Spragge, the day before the great fea-fight of that year. Almost all the volunteers that were in the fame ship were killed. Mr Middleton (brother to Sir Hugh Middleton) was shot in the arm. During the action, Sir Edward Spragge, not being fatisfied with the behaviour of one of his captains, could not eafily find a perfon that would cheerfully venture through so much danger to carry

his

his commands to that captain. This lord offered himself to the fervice; and went in a little boat, through all the fhot, and delivered his meffage, and returned back to Sir Edward; 'which was much commended by all that faw it. He thought it neceffary to begin his life with these demonstrations of courage, in an element and way of fighting which is acknowledged to be the greatest trial of clear and undaunted valour,

He had fo entirely laid down the intemperance that was growing on him before his travels, that at his return he hated nothing more; but, falling into company that loved thefe exceffes, he was, though not without difficulty, and by many steps, brought back to it again; and the natural heat of his fancy, being inflamed by wine, made him fo extravagantly pleasant, that many, to be more diverted by that humour, ftudied to engage him deeper and deeper in intemperance; which at length did fo entirely fubdue him, that, as he told me, for five years together he was continually drunk; not all the while under the visible effects of it, but his blood was fo enflamed, that he was not, in all that time cool enough to be perfectly master of himself. This led him to say and do many wild and unaccountable things: by this, he faid he had broken the firm conftitution of his health, that feemed fo ftrong that nothing was too hard for it; and he had suffered fo much in his repu

tation,

tation, that he almost despaired to recover it. There were two principles in his natural temper that, being heightened by that heat, carried him to great exceffes: a violent love of pleasure, and a disposition to extravagant mirth. The one involved him in great sensuality; the other led him to many odd adventures and frolics, in which he was oft in hazard of his life: the one being the fame irregular appetite in his mind that the other was in his body, which led him to think nothing diverting that was not extravagant. And though, in cold blood, he was a generous and good-natured man, yet he would go far, in his heats, after any thing that might turn to a jeft or matter of diverfion. He faid to me, he never improved his interest at court to do a premeditate mischief to other perfons. Yet he laid out his wit very freely in libels and fatires, in which he had a peculiar talent of mixing his wit with his malice, and fitting both with such apt words, that men were tempted to be pleased with them: from thence his compofures came to be eafily known, for few had fuch a way of tempering these together as he had ; fo that, when any thing extraordinary that way came out, as a child is fathered fometimes by its refemblance, fo it was laid at his door as its parent and author.

These exercises in the course of his life were not always equally pleasant to him; he had often fad in

tervals

tervals and severe reflections on them: and, though then he had not thefe awakened in him by any deep principle of religion, yet the horror that nature raised in him, especially in fome fickneffes, made him too eafy to receive fome ill principles which others endeavoured to poffefs him with; fo that he was too foon brought to fet himself to fecure and fortify his mind against that, by difpoffeffing it all he could of the belief or apprehenfions of religion. The licentiousness of his temper, with the brifknefs of his wit, difpofed him to love the converfation of those who divided their time between lewd actions and irregular mirth. And fo he came to bend his wit, and direct his ftudies and endeavours, to fupport and strengthen these ill principles in himself and others.

An accident fell out after this which confirmed him more in these courses. When he went to fea in the year 1665, there happened to be, in the fame fhip with him, Mr Montague and another gentleman of quality. These two, the former especially, feemed perfuaded that they fhould never return to England: Mr Montague faid he was fure of it; the other was not fo pofitive. The earl of Rochester and the last of these entered into a formal engagement, not without ceremonies of religion, that, if either of them died, he fhould appear, and give the other notice of the future ftate, if there was any; but Mr Montague would not enter into the bond. When.

the