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RIGHT HONOURABLE LIONEL

Earl of

DORSET AND MIDDLESEX.

looks like no great compliment to your Lordship that I prefix your name to this epifile, when, in the Preface, I declare the Book is published almost against my inclination. But in all cafes, my Lord, you have an hereditary right to whatever may be called mine. Many of the following pieces were written by the command of your excellent father, and most of the reft under his protection and patronage.

The particular felicity of your birth, my Lord, the natural endowment of your mind, which without fufpicion of flattery I may tell you are very great; the good education with which these parts have been improved, and your coming into the world and feeing men very early, make us expect from your Lordship all the good which our hopes can form in favour of a young nobleman. Tu Marcellus eris,-our eyes and our hearts are turned on you. You must be a judge and master of polite learning, a friend and patron to men of letters and merit, a faithful and able counsellor to your frince, a true patriot to your country, an ornament and honour to the titles you poffefs, and, in one word, a worthy fon to the great Earl of Dorfet.

It is as impoffible to mention that name without defiring to commend the perfon, as it is to give him the commendations which his virtues deferved. But I aflure myself the most agreeable compliment I can bring your Lordship is to pay a grateful respect to your fa. ther's memory: and my own obligations to him were fuch, that the world must pardon my endeavouring at his character, however I may mifcarry in the attempt. A thoufund

A thousand ornaments and graces met in the compofition of this great man, and contributed to make him univerfally beloved and esteemed. The figure of his body was strong, proportionable, beautiful; and were his picture well drawn, it must deferve the praise given to the portraits of Raphael, and at once create love and respect. While the greatness of his mein 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 gesture fomething that is more easily conceived than defcribed, that gained upon you in his favour before he fpake one word. His behaviour was eafy and courteous to all, but distinguished, 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 ftrength 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 feveral 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 supplies delighted and enriched the country through which it paffed. This extraordinary genius was accompanied with fo true a judgment in all parts of fine learning, that whatever Jubject 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 digefting

gefling the best authors, tho' he quoted them very fel

dom.

Contemnebat potius literas, quam nefciebat;

and rather feemed to draw his knowledge from his own fores than to owe it to any foreign afsistance.

The brightness of his parts, the folidity of his judgment, and the candour and generofity of his temper, diftinguished him in an age of great politeness, 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 foftness and harmony of his verfe; and Dr. Spratt in the delicacy and turn of his profe. Dryden determines by him, under the character of Eugenius, as to the laws of dramatic poetry. Butler owed it to him that the Court tafted his Hudibras : Wycherley that the Town liked his Plain Dealer: and the Duke of Buckingham deferred to publish his Rehearsal till he was fure (as he expreffed it) that my Lord Dorfet would not rehearse upon him again. If. we wanted a foreign teftimony, La Fontain and St. Evremont have acknowledged that he was a perfect mafter in the beauty and fineness of their language, and of all that they call les belles lettres. 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. Bermini 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

will hardly ever be equalled. Every one of his pieces is an ingot of gold intrinfically and folidly valuable i fuch as, wrought or beaten thinner, would shine through a whole book of any other author. His thought was always new, and the expression of it fo particularly happy, that every body knew immediately it could only

be

my Lord Dorfet's; and yet it was so easy, too, that every body was ready to imagine himself capable of writing it. There is a luftre in his verfes like that of the fun in Claude Loraine's landfcapes; it looks natural, and is inimitable. His love-verfes have a mixture of delicacy and firength; they convey the wit of Petronius in the foftnefs of Tibullus. His fatire, indeed, is fo feverely painted, 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 justly be applied to him with Perfeus gives of the best writer in this kind that ever lived:

Cmne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico
Tangit, et adinius circum præcordia ludit.

And the gentleman had always fo much the better of the satirift, that the perfons touched did not know where to fix their refentments, and were forced to appear rather afhamed than angry. Yet fo far was this great author from valuing himfelf upon his works, that he cared not what became of them, tho' every bady else did. There are many things of his not extant in writing, which however are always repeated: like the verfes and Jayings of the ancient Druids, they retain an universal veneration, though they are preferved only by memory.

As it is often feen that those men who are leaft qualifi

ed

et for business love it most, my Lord Dorfet's characer was, that he certainly understood 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 business, he turned his parts rather to books, and converfation than to politics, 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 constancy of mind which fhewed that he had not only read the rules of philofophy, but underfood the practice of

them.

In the first Dutch war he went a volunteer under the Duke of York: his behaviour during that campaign was fuch as diftinguished the Sackville defcend. ed from that Hildebrand of the name who was one of the greatest captains that came into England with the Conqueror. But his making a fong the night before the engagement (and it was one of the prettiest that ever was made) carries with it fo fedate a prefence of mind, and fuch an unusual gallantry, that it deferves as much to be recorded as Alexander's jefting with his foldiers before he paffet the Granicus, or William 1. of Orange giving orders over-night for a battle, and defiring to be called in the morning left he fould happen to fleep too long.

From hence, during the remaining part of King Charles's reign, he continued to live in honourable leifure. He was of the Bed-chamber to the king, and poffeffed not only his master's favour, but in a great degree his familiarity, never leaving the Court but when he was fent to that of France, on fome short commif

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