it muft deferve the praife given to the portraits of Raphael; and, at once, create love and refpect. While the greatnefs of his mien informed men, they were approaching the nobleman; the fweetness of it invited them to come nearer to the patron. There was in his look and gefture fomething that is more easily conceived than defcribed; that gained upon you in his favour, before he spake one word. His behaviour was eafy and courteous to all; but diftinguished and adapted to each man in particular, according to his ftation and quality. His civility was free from the formality of rule, and flowed immediately from his good fenfe.

Such were the natural faculties and strength of his mind, that he had occafion to borrow very little from education; and he owed thofe advantages to his own good parts, which others acquire by study and imitation. His wit was abundant, noble, bold. Wit in moft writers is like a fountain in a garden, fupplied by several streams brought through artful pipes, and playing fometimes agreeably. But the Earl of Dorfet's was a fource rifing from the top of a mountain, which forced its own way, and with inexhaustible fupplies, delighted and enriched the country through which it paffed. This extraordinary genius was

accom

accompanied with so true a judgment in all parts of fine learning, that whatever subject was before him, he difcourfed as properly of it, as if the peculiar bent of his study had been applied that way; and he perfected his judgment by reading and digesting the best authors, though he quoted them very feldom,

Contemnebat potiùs literas, quàm nesciebat :

and rather feemed to draw his knowledge from his own ftores, than to owe it to any foreign affiftance.

The brightness of his parts, the folidity of his judgment, and the candor and generofity of his temper diftinguished him in an age of great politenefs, and at a court abounding with men of the finest sense and learning. The most eminent mafters in their feveral ways appealed to his determination. Waller thought it an honour to confult him in the foftnefs and harmony of his verfe and Dr. Sprat, in the delicacy and turn his profe. Dryden determines by him, * under the character of Eugenius, as to the laws

See Dryden's Effay on Dramatick Poefie, firft printed in quarto, and addreffed to Charles Earl of Dorset, then Lord Buckhurst.

of dramatick poetry. Butler owed it to him that the court tafted his Hudibras: Wicherley, that the town liked his Plain Dealer: and the late Duke of Buckingham deferred to publish his Reherfal; till he was fure (as he expreffed it) that my Lord Dorfet would not rehearse upon him again. If we wanted foreign teftimony, La Fontaine and St. Evremont have acknowledged, that he was a perfect mafter of the beauty and fineness of their language, and of all that they call les Belles Letters. Nor was this nicety of his judgment confined only to books and literature; but was the fame in ftatuary, painting, and all other parts of art. Bernini would have taken his opinion upon the beauty and attitude of a figure; and King Charles did not agree with Lely, that my Lady Cleveland's picture was finished, 'till it had the approbation of my Lord Buckhurst.

As the judgment which he made of others writings, could not be refuted; the manner in which he wrote, will hardly ever be equalled. Every one of his pieces is an ingot of gold, intrinfically and folidly valuable; fuch as, wrought or beaten thinner, would fhine through a whole book of any other author. His thought was always new; and the expreffion of it so particu

larly

larly happy, that every body knew immediately, it could only be my Lord Dorfet's: and yet it was fo eafy too, that every body was ready to imagine himself capable of writing it. There is a luftre in his verses, like that of the fun in Claude Loraine's landskips: it looks natural, and is inimitable. His love-verfes have a mixture of delicacy and strength: they convey the wit of Petronius in the foftness of Tibullus. His fatyr indeed is fo feverely pointed, that in it he appears, what his great friend the Earl of Rochester (that other prodigy of the Age) fays

he was;

The best good man, with the worst natur'd Mufe.

Yet even here, that character may juftly be applied to him, which Perfius gives of the best writer in this kind, that ever lived:

Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico

Tangit, & admiffus circum præcordia ludit.

And the gentleman had always fo much the better of the fatyrift, that the perfons touched did not know where to fix their resentments; and were forced to appear rather ashamed than angry. Yet fo far was this great author from valuing himself upon his works, that he cared not what became

became of them, though every body else did. There are many things of his not extant in writing, which however are always repeated: like the verses and fayings of the antient Druids, they retain an universal veneration; though they are preferved only by memory.

As it is often feen, that thofe men who are leaft qualified for business, love it most; my Lord Dorfet's character was, that he certainly underflood it, but did not care for it.

Coming very young to the poffeffion of two plentiful eftates, and in an age when pleasure was more in fashion than bufinefs; he turned his parts rather to books and conversation, than to politicks, and what more immediately related to the public. But whenever the fafety of his country demanded his affiftance, he readily entered into the most active parts of life; and underwent the greatest dangers, with a conftancy of mind, which fhewed, that he had not only read the rules of philofophy, but understood the practice of them.

In the firft Dutch war he went a volunteer under the Duke of York: his behaviour, during that campaign, was such, as diftinguished the Sackville defcended from that Hildebrand of the name, who was one of the greatest captains that