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TO THE MEMORY OF

JOHN SHEFFIELD,

DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,

THESE

HIS MORE LASTING REMAINS

(THE MONUMENT OF HIS MIND, AND MORE PERFECT IMAGE OF HIMSELF)

ARE HERE COLLECTED BY THE DIRECTION OF

CATHARINE HIS DUCHESS:

DESIROUS THAT HIS ASHES MAY BE HONOURED,

AND HIS FAME AND MERIT COMMITTED TO THE TEST OF

TIME, TRUTH, AND POSTERITY.

THE

LIFE OF SHEFFIELD.

BY DR. JOHNSON.

JOHN SHEFFIELD, descended from a long series of illustrious ancestors, was born in 1649, the son of Edmund earl of Mulgrave, who died in 1658. The young lord was put into the hands of a tutor, with whom he was so little satisfied, that he got rid of him in a short time, and, at an age not exceeding twelve years, resolved to educate himself. Such a purpose, formed at such an age, and successfully prosecuted, delights as it is strange, and instructs as it is real.

His literary acquisitions are more wonderful, as those years in which they are commonly made were spent by him in the tumult of a military life, or the gaiety of a court. When war was declared against the Dutch, he went at seventeen on board the ship in which prince Rupert and the duke of Albemarle sailed, with the command of the fleet; but, by contrariety of winds, they were restrained from action. His zeal for the king's service was recompensed by the command of one of the independent troops of horse, then raised to protect the coast.

Next year he received a summons to parliament, which, as he was then but eighteen years old, the earl of Northumberland censured as, at least, indecent, and his objection was allowed. He had a quarrel with the earl of Rochester, which he has, perhaps, too ostentatiously related, as Rochester's surviving sister, the lady Sandwich, is said to have told him with very sharp reproaches.

When another Dutch war (1672) broke out, he went again a volunteer in the ship which the celebrated lord Ossory commanded; and there made, as he relates, two curious remarks:

" I have observed two things, which I dare affirm, though not generally believed. One was, that the wind of a cannon bullet, though flying never so near, is incapable of doing the least harm; and, indeed, were it otherwise, no man above deck would escape. The other was, that a great shot may be sometimes avoided, even as it flies, by changing one's ground a little; for, when the wind sometimes blew away the smoke, it was so clear a sun-shiny day, that we could easily perceive the bullets (that were half-spent) fall into the water, and from thence bound up again among us,

which gives sufficient time for making a step or two on any side; though, in so swift a motion, it is hard to judge well in what line the bullet comes, which, if mistaken, may, by removing, cost a man his life, instead of saving it.”

His behaviour was so favourably represented by lord Ossory, that he was advanced to the command of the Catharine, the best second-rate ship in the navy.

He afterwards raised a regiment of foot, and commanded it as colonel. The land forces were sent ashore by prince Rupert: and he lived in the camp very familiarly with Schomberg. He was then appointed colonel of the old Holland regiment, together with his own, and had the promise of a garter, which he obtained in his twenty-fifth year. He was likewise made gentleman of the bed-chamber. He afterwards went into the French service, to learn the art of war under Turenne, but staid only a short time. Being by the duke of Monmouth opposed in his pretensions to the first troop of horse-guards, he, in return, made Monmouth suspected by the duke of York. He was, not long after, when the unlucky Monmouth fell into disgrace, recompensed with the lieutenancy of Yorkshire, and the government of Hull.

Thus rapidly did he make his way both to military and civil honours and employments; yet, busy as he was, he did not neglect his studies, but at least cultivated poetry; in which he must have been early considered as uncommonly skilful, if it be true, which is reported, that, when he was not twenty years old, his recommenda tion advanced Dryden to the laurel.

The Moors having besieged Tangier, he was sent (1680) with two thousand men to its relief. A strange story is told of the danger to which he was intentionally exposed in a leaky ship, to gratify some resentful jealousy of the king, whose health he therefore would never permit at his table, till he saw himself in a safer place. His voyage was prosperously performed in three weeks; and the Moors, without a contest, retired before him.

In this voyage he composed the Vision; a licentious poem, such as was fashionable in those times, with little power of invention or propriety of sentiment.

At his return, he found the king kind, who, perhaps, had never been angry; and he continued a wit and a courtier as before.

At the succession of king James, to whom he was intimately known, and by whom he thought himself beloved, he naturally expected still brighter sun-shine; but all know how soon that reign began to gather clouds. His expectations were not disappointed; he was immediately admitted into the privy-council, and made lord chamberlain. He accepted a place in the high conmission, without knowledge, as he declared after the Revolution, of its illegality. Having few religious scruples, he attended the king to mass, and kneeled with the rest; but had no disposition to receive the Romish faith, or to force it upon others; for when the priests, encouraged by his appearances of compliance, attempted to convert him, he told them, as Burnet has recorded, that he was willing to receive instruction, and that he had taken much pains to believe in God, who had made the world and all men in it; but that he should not be easily persuaded that man was quits, and made God again.

A pointed sentence is bestowed by successive transmission to the last whom it will fit; this censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its value, was uttered long ago by Anne Askew, one of the first sufferers for the protestant religion, who, in the time

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