"LOVE. "To love, is to be doom'd on earth to feel All this is love; that to dissembled joys Invites vain men, with real grief destroys." "TO MR. JOHN DRYDEN, ON HIS SEVERAL TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ANCIENT POETS. "As Britain in rich soil abounding wide, CHARLES MORDAUNT, THIRD EARL OF PETERBOROUGH, ONE of those men of careless wit and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand bon-mots and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather and hoard, till the owners stare to find themselves authors. Such was this lord: of an advantageous figure, and enterprising spirit; as gallant as Amadis and as brave, but a little more expeditious in his journeys; for he is said "to have seen more kings and more postillions than any man in Europe." His enmity to the duke of Marlborough, and his friendship with Pope, will preserve his name, when his genius, too romantic to have laid a solid foundation for fame; and his politics, too disinterested for his age and country, shall be equally forgotten". "He was a man," as his poet said 3," who 2 [Lord Lansdown addressed an inflated copy of verses to the earl of Peterborough on his happy accomplishment of the marriage between the duke of York and the princess Mary d'Esté, wherein he indulges a wild conceit that the indebted nation would repay its obligation by raising to the genius of the noble earl-" Statues with palm adorn'd on every threshold."] * See Pope's Letters to Swift, let. 76. would neither live nor die like any other mortal." Yet even particularities were becoming in him, as he had a natural ease that immediately adopted and saved them from the air of affectation. He wrote "La Muse de Cavalier; or, an Apology for such Gentlemen as make Poetry their Diversion, not their Business;" in a letter from a scholar of Mars to one of Apollo; printed in the Public Register, or Weekly Magazine, No. 3, p. 88, published by Dodsley, 1741. "A severe Copy of Verses on the Duchess of Marlborough; addressed to Mr. Harley, after his removal from court." He was author too of those well-known lines which conclude "Who'd have thought Mrs. Howard ne'er dreamt it was she!" Four very genteel letters of his are printed among Pope's. The account of the earl's conduct in Spain, taken from his original letters and papers, was drawn up by Dr. Freind, and published in 1707, Svo. [In his lordship's travels through different parts of Spain, he was so often constrained to dress his food for himself, that be became a good cook; and such was the force of habit, that, [This nobleman in his youth served under the admirals Torrington and Narborough in the Mediterranean against the state of Algiers; and distinguished himself at Tangiers, in Africa, when it was besieged by the Moors, Disliking the proceedings of the court in the reign of James the second, he was among the first of the English nobility who engaged in the prince of Orange's service, and was one of those, as bishop Burnet relates, whom that prince chiefly trusted, and by whose advice he was principally directed. Being instrumental therefore in promoting the revolution, on the accession of king William he was appointed one of the lords of the bedchamber, first lord' commissioner of the treasury, and in 1689 had the additional dignity of earl of Monmouth. In 1692 he served under that monarch during the campaign in Flanders. By queen Anne in 1705, his lordship was declared general and commander in chief of the forces sent to Spain, and joint admiral of the fleet with sir Cloudesley Shovel. His conduct in this expedition obtained the thanks of the house of peers for his till disabled by age, his dinner was constantly of his own dressing. Those who visited him at Parson's Green have reported, that he used to retire from his company an hour before dinner-time, when he equipped himself in the garb of a tavern-cook; and having dispatched his culinary affairs, would return properly apparelled, and take his place at the table. Univ. Mag. vol. lx. P. 20.] great and eminent services." In 1710-11 he was employed as ambassador at Turin and other Italian courts, and in 1713 was installed a knight companion of the order of the garter. In the reign of George the first he was constituted general of all the marine forces in Great Britain; and had the same commission continued by George the second. Having made a voyage to Lisbon, from the declining state of his health, he died there in Oct. 1735, aged seventy-seven. "Remarks on a Pamphlet entitled The Thoughts of a Member of the Lower House, in re'lation to a Project for restraining and limiting the 'Power of the Crown in the future Creation of Peers"." Lond. 1719, 8vo. But "La Muse Cavaliere," or at least a metrical piece with the same title, appears among the poems of lord Cutts, which were published by that nobleman himself. á The earl of Peterborough was so active a traveller, according to Swift 5, that queen Anne's ministers used to say, they wrote at him, and not to him. He left behind him in MS. the "Memoirs of his Life," in which he seems not to have spared his own character, and which, from delicate regard to his reputation, his widow consigned to the flames 6. His lordship was a man of frolic. Richardson in 5 Sce Pope's Letters, vol. ix. p. 196. |