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 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 courfe 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 difregard to every moral, and a refolute denial of every religious obligation, he lived worthless and ufeleis, 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 ftate of weakness and decay. with great At this time he was led to an acquaintance with Dr. Burnet, to whom he laid open dom the tenour of his opinions, and the courfe 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 confequences 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 piety. It were an injury to the reader to offer him an abridgement. 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 Rocheiler 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 itself 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 be flowed. 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 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 some of the pieces, however, there is no doubt. The Imitation of Horace's Satire, the Verfes to Lord Mulgrave, the Satire against Man, the Verfes upon Nothing, and perhaps fome others, are I believe genuine, and perhaps most of thofe which this collection exhibits. As he cannot be fuppofed to have found leifure for any course 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 desertion, absence and and inconftancy, with the common places of artificial courtship. They are commonly fmooth and eafy; but have little nature, and little fentiment. His imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not inclegant or unhappy. In the reign of Charles the Second began that adaptation, which has fince been very frequent, of ancient poetry to prefent times; and perhaps few will be found where the parallelifm is better preferved than in this. The verfification is indeed fometimes carelefs, but it is fometimes vigo rous and weighty. The strongest effort of his Mufe is his poem upon Nothing. He is not the first who has chofen this barren topick for the boaft of his fertility. There is a poem called Nihil in Latin by Pafferat, a poet and critick 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. His works are not common, and therefore I fhall fubjoin his verses. In examining this performance, Nothing must 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 fecond it is taken pofitively, as an agent. In one of Boileau's lines it was a queftion, whether he should ufe à rien faire, or à ne rien faire; and the first was preferred because it gave rien at fense in some fort pofitive. Nothing can be a fubject only only in its pofitive sense, and such a sense is given it in the first line: Nothing, thou elder brother ev'n to shade. In this line, I know not whether he does not allude to a curious book de Umbra, by Wowerus, which, having told the qualities of Shade, concludes with a poem, in which are thefe lines: Jam primum terram validis circumfpice clauftris The pofitive sense is generally preserved, with great skill, through the whole poem; though fometimes, in a fubordinate sense, the negative nothing is injudiciously mingled. Pafferat confounds the two fenfes. Another of his moft vigorous pieces is his Lampoon on Sir Car Scroop, who, in a poem called The Praise of Satire, had fome lines like these * He who can push into a midnight fray This was meant of Rochefter, whofe buffoon conceit was, I fuppofe, a faying often mentioned, that every Man would be a coward if he durft; and drew * I quote from memory. Dr. J. from him those furious verfes; to which Scroop made in reply an epigram, ending with thefe lines: Thou canst hurt no man's fame with thy ill word; Of the fatire against Man, Rochefter can only claim what remains when all Boileau's part is taken away. In all his works there is fpritelinefs and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind which study might have carried to excellence. What more can be expected from a life spent in oftentatious contempt of regularity, and ended before the abilities of many other men began to be difplayed? Poema |