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P ASSAGES

IN THE

LIFE AND DEATH

OF

JOHN Earl of Rochester,

Written by his own Direction on his Death-bed.
By GILBERT BURNET, D. D.
Bishop of SALISBURY.

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SERMON,

Preached, at the FUNERAL of the faid EARL,
By the Rev. ROBERT PARSONS, A. M.
To this Edition is prefixed

Some ACCOUNT of the LIFE and WRITINGS
of the EARL of ROCHESTER,

By Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

The Account of Burnet's falutary Conferences (with Rochester) are giyen
by him in a Book, entitled-Some Paffages in the Life and Death of John
Earl of Rochester; which the Critic ought to read for its Elegance, the
Philofopher for its Arguments, and the Saint for its Piety.

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تو

5-9-1920

ADVERTISEMENT.

BISHOP BURNET's Narrative of the most remar

kable Paffages in the Life of the celebrated John Wilmot, Earl of Rochefter, has ever been greatly valued, not only as an elegant compofition, but as a leffon of inftruction to mankind.

A young nobleman, converfant in a moft licentious court, whence regularity of behaviour and found morality were banished for the more tempting allurements of vicious pleasures and fenfual gratifications, was unhappily drawn into the commiffion of the moft unjustifiable and profligate actions. A fit of ficknefs roufed him into a fenfe of his abandoned course of life; he called for the assistance of an eminent divine, to whom he trufted his moft fecret actions; and, with all the candour of conviction and the fincerity of penitence, earneftly requested him, on his death-bed, to communicate them freely and undifguised to the world. Burnet has faithfully fulfilled the intentions of his penitent; but, at the fame time, has related the beft as well as the worst part of lord Rochefter's life.

The very high encomium beftowed upon this book by Dr. Samuel Johnson, the greatest name in literature, in his Lives of the English Poets, has induced the bookfeller to reprint it, with the addition of the.. fame great author's Account of the Life and Writings of the Earl of Rochefter..

The

The following Account of the Earl of ROCHESTER's Life and Writings is

taken from Dr. JOHNSON'S Preface to the Works of that Nobleman.

OHN WILMOT, afterwards earl of Rochefter, the the fon of Henry earl of Rochefter, better known by the title of lord Wilmot, was born, April 10, 1647, at Ditchley in Oxfordshire. After a grammatical education at the fchool of Burford, he entered a nobleman into Wadham-college in 1659, only twelve years old; and, in 1661, at fourteen, was, with fome other persons of high rank, made master of arts by lord Clarendon in perfon.

He travelled afterwards into France and Italy; and, at his return, devoted himfelf to a court. In 1665 he went to fea with Sandwich, and distinguished himself at Bergen by uncommon intrepidity; and the next fummer ferved again on-board fir Edward Spragge, who, in the heat of the engagement, having a meffage of reproof to fend to one of his captains, could find no man ready to carry it but Wif mot, who, in an open boat, went and returned amidst the storm of fhot.

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But his reputation for bravery was not lafting: he was reproached with flinking away in street-quarrels, and leaving his companions to shift as they could without him.

He had very early an inclination to intemperance, which he totally fubdued in his travels; but, when he became a courtier, he unhappily addicted himfelf to diffolute and vicious company, by which his principles were corrupted and his manners depraved. He loft all fenfe of religious restraint; and, finding it not convenient to admit the authority of laws which he was refolved not to obey, sheltered his wickednefs behind infidelity.

As he excelled in that noify and licentious merriment which wine excites, his companions eagerly encouraged him in excefs, and he willingly indulged it, till, as he confeffed to Dr. Burnet, he was for five years together continually drunk, or fo much inflamed by frequent ebriety as in no interval to be mafter of himself.

In this ftate he played many frolics, which it is not for his honour that we should remember, and which are not now distinctly known. He often purfued low amours in mean disguises, and always acted with great exactnefs and dexterity the characters which he affumed.

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He once erected a ftage on Tower-hill, and harangued the populace as a mountebank; and, having made phyfic part of his study, is faid to have practifed it fuccessfully.

He was fo much in favour with king Charles, that

he was made one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber and comptroller of Woodstock-park.

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 course 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 useless, 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 state of weakness and decay.

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