Dorfet, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride, His anger moral, and his wisdom gay, Bleft Satirift! who touch'd the mean so true, As fhew'd vice had his hate and pity too. Bleft Courtier! who could king and country please, Yet facred keep his judgment and his ease. Reflecting, and reflected in his race. Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine, POPE. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY MUNDELL AND SON, ROYAL BANK CLOSE. Anno 1793. LIFE OF DORSET. THE LIFE CHARLES SACKVILLE, Earl of Dorfet, was born January 24. 1637. He was eldest son of Richard Earl of Dorfet, lineally defcended from Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurft, created Earl of Dorset by King James I. one of the earlieft and brightest ornaments to the poetry of his country, and the first who produced a regular drama. Having been educated under a private tutor, he travelled into Italy, and returned to England à little before the Restoration. Immediately after the Restoration, he was chofen member of parliament for East Grinstead in Suffex; and foon became a favourite of Charles II.; but undertook no public employment, being too eager of the riotous and licentious pleasures which young men of wit and high rank at that time thought themselves entitled to indulge. In 1665, he attended the Duke of York as a volunteer in the Dutch war, and was in the battle of June 3, when the Dutch admiral Opdam, was blown up, and thirty fhips taken and destroyed. On the day before the battle he is faid to have compofed the celebrated fong, To all you Ladies now at Land, with equal gallantry and promptitude of wit. He was foon after made a Gentleman of the Bed-chamber to the King; and fent on fhort embaffies of compliment to France. In 1674, the eftate of his uncle Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlefex, came to him by the death of that nobleman without iffue; and the title was conferred on him the year following. In 1667, he became, by the death of his father, Earl of Dorfet, and inherited the estate of his family. In 1684, having buried his firft wife, of the family of Bagot, he married Lady Mary Compton, daughter of the Earl of Northampton, celebrated both for her beauty and understanding; by whom he had a fon, and a daughter. He received fome favourable notice from King James; but found it neceffary to oppofe the violence of his proceedings; and appeared, with fome other Lords, in Westminster Hall, to countenance the bishops, at their trials; which had a good effect upon the jury, and brought the judges to a better temper than they had ufually fhewn. He concurred with other distinguished patriots in the Revolution, and conducted his part of that enterprise with the fame courage and refolution in London, as his friend the Duke of Devonshire did, in arms, at Nottingham. He was employed to conduct the Princess Anne to Nottingham, with a guard; and was one of the Lords who fat every day in council to preferve the public peace after the king's departure. He voted for the vacancy of the throne, and that the Prince and Princefs of Orange fhould be declared King and Queen of England. He became, as might be expected, a favourite of King William, who, the day after his acceffion, made him Lord Chamberlain of the Household; "a place," fays Prior," which he eminently adorned by the grace of his perfon, the fineness of his breeding, and the knowledge and practice of what was decent and magnificent." In 1691, he was made a Knight of the Garter; and was conftituted four times one of the Regents of the kingdom in his majesty's abfence. About 1698, his health declining, he retired from public business, appearing only fometimes a council; and died at Bath, on the 19th of January 1705-6. He wrote nothing but small copies of verses, which were published among the works of the minor poets 1749. His longeft compofition is a fong of eleven stanzas. They are the effufions of a man of wit; rather pretty than great; always gay and airy; and fometimes vigorous and ele gant as in his Verfes to Howard, which fhew fertility of mind; and his Character of Dorinda, which has been imitated by Pope. He poffeffed the rare fecret of uniting energy with cafe in his little compofitions. His Lordship and Waller are faid to have affifted Mrs. Katherine Philips in her tranflation of Corneille's Pompey. He was esteemed the most accomplished gentleman of the age in which he lived; which is rekoned the most courtly ever known in our nation; when,' as Pope expreffes it, The foldiers ap'd the gallantries of France, And every flowery courtier writ romance. Hi elegance and judgment were univerfally confeffed by his contemporaries; and his bounty to men of wit and learning were generally known. He distinguished Dryden by his beneficence, who requited him with hyperbolical adulation ; and patronized Prior, who made a public acknowledg ment of his obligations to him; in which the warmth of his gratitude appears in the most elegant panegyric. "That he scarce knew what life was, fooner than he found himself obliged to his favour; or had reafon to feel any forrow fo fenfibly, as that of his death!" Congreve has celebrated his wit and good nature, and Pope has written his epitaph, in which his character is reprefented to great advantage. His character is elegantly drawn by the prefent Earl of Orford, to which no after-strokes can be added by a casual hand. "If one turns," fays his lordship, to the authors of the last age for the character of this lerd, one meets with nothing but encomiums on his wit and good nature. He was the finest gentleman in the voluptuous court of Charles II. and in the gloomy one of King William. He had as much wit as his first mafter, or his contemporaries Buckingham and Rochester, without the royal want of feeling, the duke's want of principles, or the earl's want of thought. The latter faid with astonishment, "That he did not know how it was, but Lord Dorfet might do any thing, and yet was never to blame." It was not that he was free from the failings of humanity, but he had the tendernes of it too, which made every body excufe whom every body loved; for even the afperity of his verfes feems to have been forgiven, to "The best good man with the worst-natured mufc." This line is not more familiar than Lord Dorfct's own poems, to all who have a taste for the gen tecleft beauties of natural and easy verfe." POEMS. TO MR. EDWARD HOWARD, ON HIS INCOMPARABLE, INCOMPREHENSIBLE POEM, CALLED THE BRITISH PRINCES. COME on, ye Critics, find one fault who dares; So the dull eel moves nimbler in the mud, TO THE SAME. ON HIS PLAYS. THOU damn'd antipodes to common sense Garbage, ox-cheeks, and tripes, do feast thy brain, Canft thou not find, among thy numerous race For were it not that we respect afford Thine in the ducking-stool fhould take her feat, |