CHARLES SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET2. If one turns to the authors of the last age for the character of this lord, one meets with nothing but encomiums on his wit and good nature 3. He was the finest gentleman in the voluptuous court of Charles the second, and in the gloomy one of king William. He had as much wit as his first master 4, or his contempo Having omitted him in his place, as being the author only of speeches and letters, I shall refer my readers for an account of another ornament of this family, Edward, earl of Dorset, to Anthony Wood, who, vol. ii. p. 155, mentions several speeches and letters of state of this lord in print; and whose own manly and spirited account of his duel with the lord Bruce is sufficiently known. [Vid. article of this earl, vol. iii. p. 45.] 3 [Rymer, in 1693, dedicated his "Short View of Tragedy," to Charles, earl of Dorset, and thus addressed him: "Now, my lord, that the muses commonweal is become your province; what may we not expect? This I say, not with intent to apply that of Quintilian, or Augustus Cæsar, parum diis visum est esse eum maximum poetarum; that were a common topick: but because, when some years ago I tryed the publick with observations concerning the stage; it was principally your countenance that buoy'd me up, and supported a righteous cause against the prejudice and corruption then reigning."] 4 [Anthony Wood, who was one of his contemporaries, speaks of him as "a person highly esteemed for his admirable raries Buckingham and Rochester, without the royal want of feeling, the duke's want of principles, or the earl's want of thought. The latter said with astonishment, "That he did not know how it was, but lord Dorset might do any thing, and yet was never to blame "." It was not that he was free from the failings of humanity, but he had the tenderness of it too, which made every body excuse whom every body loved; for even the asperity of his verses seems to have been forgiven to The best good man with the worst-natur'd muse. This line is not more familiar than lord Dorset's own poems, to all who have a taste for the genteelest beauties of natural and easy verse, or than his lordship's own bon-mots, of which I cannot help repeating one of singular humour. Lord Craven was a proverb for officious whispers to men in power: on lord Dorset's promotion, king Charles having seen lord Craven pay his usual tribute to him, asked the former what the latter had been saying; the earl replied gravely, vein in poetry, and other polite learning, as several things of his composition, while lord Buckhurst, show." Athenæ, vol. i. col. 348.] [See Prior's Dedication of his poems to Lionel, earl of Dorset and Middlesex.] "Sir, my lord Craven did me the honour to whisper, but I did not think it good manners to listen." When he was dying, Congreve, who had been to visit him, being asked how he had left him, replied, "Faith, he slabbers more wit than other people have in their best health.” His lordship wrote nothing but small copies of verses, most of which have been collected in the late editions of our Minor Poets; and with the duke of Buckingham's works are printed two of lord Dorset's poems, and in Prior's posthumous works' is one, called "The antiquated Coquet." His lordship and Waller are said to have assisted Mrs. Catharine Philips in her translation of Corneille's Pompey. [This celebrated wit was descended in a direct line from Thomas, first earl of Dorset, one of the earliest ornaments to the poetry of his country, and one of the brightest honours to its statists. He was born in 1637, and after completing his education under a pri Vol. ii. p. 14, and 56. 2 Vol. i. p. 170. [In the State Poems, vol. i. is the "Duel of the Crabs," by the earl of Dorset and H. Saville; occa sioned by the Duel of the Stags, by sir Robert Howard.] * See vol. ii. p. 124, of this work. vate tutor, travelled into Italy, and returned to England a little before the revolution. He shone in the house of commons, and was caressed by Charles the second, but undertook no public employment, says Dr. Johnson, being too eager after the riotous and licentious pleasures which young men of high rank who aspire to be thought wits, imagine themselves entitled to indulge. He was in truth, adds the New Biog. Dict.7, like Villiers, Rochester, Sedley, &c. one of the libertines of Charles's court, and thought of nothing so much as feats of gallantry, which sometimes carried him to inexcusable excesses 8. In 1655 he attended the duke of York as a volunteer against the Dutch, and the night before the engagement with admiral Opdam is said to have composed his wellknown song "To all Ladies now at Land," with equal tranquillity of mind and promptitude of wit. He was soon after made a gentleman of the 7 Vol. xiii. p. 176. * Cibber tells us, that his mind being more turned to books and to polite conversation, than to public business, he totally declined the latter, though, as bishop Burnet says, the king courted him as a favourite. Lives of the Poets, vol. iii. p. 112. 9 Prior remarks, that this act of unusual gallantry carried with it so sedate a presence of mind, that it deserves as much to be recorded as Alexander's jesting with his soldiers before he passed the Granicus; or William, the first prince of Orange, giving order over-night for a battle, and desiring to be called in the morning, lest he should happen to sleep too long. Seldom, however, as Dr. Johnson sagely observes, is any splendid story wholly true. "I have heard," continues the Doctor, "from bed-chamber, and sent upon several short embassies of compliment to France. In 1674 the estate of his uncle, James, earl of Middlesex, devolved to him, and the title was conferred on him the year after. In 1677 he became, by the death of his father, earl of Dorset, and inherited the estate of his family. He received some favourable notice from king James, but soon found it necessary to oppose the violence of his innovations, and early engaged for the prince of Orange, by whom he was made lord chamberlain of the household, and taken into the privy-council. In 1691 he was made a knight of the garter, and was four times constituted one of the regents of the kingdom in his majesty's absence. In 1692 he attended king William to the congress at the Hague, and was near losing his life in the passage. About 1698, his health declining, he retired from public affairs, and died at Bath, January 19, 1705.6. Macky styles him the Mecenas and prince of English poets, and spoke of him about 1704, as one of the pleasantest companions in the world when he liked his company; though then very fat, troubled with the spleen, and turned of sixty years old 2. Dunton, near the same time, remarked that all lord Dorset advances, is solid and yet lively, grave as well as shining; his dis the late earl of Orrery, who was likely to have good hereditary intelligence, that lord Buckhurst had been a week employed upon it, and only retouched or finished it on the memorable evening: but even this, whatever it may subtract from his facility, leaves him his courage." Lives of the Poets. • Characters of the Court of Great Britain, p. 56. VOL. IV. C |