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But his reputation for bravery was not lafting: he was reproached with flinking away in street 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, hé unhappily addicted himself to diffolute and vitious company, by which his principles were corrupted, and his manners depraved. He loft all fenfe of religious restraint; and, finding it not convenient to admit the authority of laws which he was refolved not to obey, fheltered his wickednefs behind infidelity.

As he excelled in that noify and licentious. merriment which wine incites, 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 himself.

In this ftate he played many frolicks, which it is not for his honour that we should remember, and which are not now diftinctly known. He often pursued low amours in mean difguifes,

and

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 phyfic 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 ftudy; he read what. is confidered as polite learning fo much, that he is mentioned by Wood as the greatest scholar 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 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 A 4 volup

voluptuoufnefs; till, at the age of one and thirty, he had exhausted 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 Chriftianity, ast 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 Rochefter; which the critic 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 abridge

ment.

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

Lord Rochester 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

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 extinguifhed; and his poetry still retains some splendour beyond that which genius has bestowed..

Wood and Burnet give us reason 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 afcertained. The first 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 not doubt. The Imitation of Horace's Satire, the Verses to Lord Mulgrave, the Satire against Man, the Verfes upon Nothing, and perhaps fome others, are I believe genuine, and perhaps most of those which the late collection exhibits..

As he cannot be fuppofed to have found leifure 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, difmiffion and defertion, abfence

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abfence and inconftancy, with the common places of artificial courtfhip. They are commonly smooth and eafy; but have little nature and little fentiment.

His imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not inelegant or unhappy. In the reign of Charles the Second began that adaptation, which has fince been very frequent, of ancient poetry to present times; and perhaps few will be found where the parallelism is better preferved than in this. The verfification is indeed fometimes carelefs, but it is fometimes vigorous and weighty..

The strongest effort of his Mufe is his poemupon Nothing. He is not the first who has chosen this barren topic for the boast of his fertility. There is a poem called Nibil in Latin. by Pafferat, a poet and critic of the fixteenth century in France; who, in his own epitaph, expreffes his zeal for good poetry thus:.

-Molliter offa quiefcent,

Sint modo carminibus non onerata malis.

In examining this performance, Nothing muft be confidered as having not only a negative but a kind of pofitive fignification: as I need not fear thieves, I have nothing; and nothing is a very powerful protector. In the first part of the fentence it is taken negatively; in the fe

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