his mind, that he had occasion to borrow very little from education; and he owed those advantages to his own good parts which others acquire by study and imitation. His wit was abundant, noble, bold. Wit, in most writers, is like a fountain in a garden, supplied by several streams brought through artful pipes, and playing sometimes agreeably: but the Earl of Dorset's was a source rising from the top of a mountain, which forced its own way, and, with inexhaustible supplies, delighted and enriched the country through which it passed. This extraordinary genius was accompanied with so true a judgment in all parts of fine learning, that whatever subject was before him, he discoursed 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 seldom.

Contemnebat potius literas, quam nesciebat;

and rather seemed to draw his knowledge from his own stores, than to owe it to any foreign assistance.

The brightness of his parts, the solidity of his judgment, and the candour and generosity of his temper, distinguished him in an age of great politeness, and at a court abounding with men of the finest sense and learning. The most eminent masters, in their several ways, appealed to his determination. Waller thought it an honour to consult, him in the softness and harmony of his verse; and Dr. Spratin the delicacy and turn of his prose. Dryden determines by him, under the character

of Eugenius, as to the laws of dramatic poetry. Butler owed it to him that the Court tasted his Hudibras Wycherly, that the Town liked his Plain Dealer and the Duke of Buckingham deferred to publish his Rehearsal, till he was sure (as he expressed it) that my Lord Dorset would not rehearse upon him again. If we wanted a foreign testimony, La Fontaine and St. Evremont have acknowledged, that he was a perfect master 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 same in statuary, 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, intrinsically and solidly valuable: such 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 so particularly happy, that every body knew immediately it could only be my Lord Dorset's; and yet it was so easy, too, that every body was ready to imagine himself capable of writing it. There is a lustre in his verses, like that of the sun in Claude Loraine's landscapes; it looks natural, and is inimitable. His love-verses have a mixture of delicacy and strength: they

convey the wit of Petronius in the softness of Tibullus. His satire, indeed, is so severely pointed, that in it he appears, what his great friend the Earl of Rochester (that other prodigy of the age) says he was,

The best good man, with the worst-natured Muse.

Yet, even here, that character may justly be applied to him which Perseus gives of the best writer in this kind that ever lived;

Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico
Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia ludit.

And the gentleman had always so much the better
of the satirist, that the persons touched did not
know where to fix their resentments; and were
forced to appear rather ashamed than angry. Yet
so far was this great Author from valuing himself
upon
his works, that he cared not what 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
sayings of the ancient Druids, they retain an uni-
versal veneration, though they are preserved only
by memory.

As it is often seen that those men who are least qualified for business love it most; my Lord Dorset's character was, that he certainly understood it, but did not care for it.

Coming very young to the possession of two plentiful estates, and in an age when pleasure was more in fashion than business; he turned his parts rather to books and conversation than to politics, and what more immediately related to the public: but whenever the safety of his coun

try demanded his assistance, he readily entered into the most active parts of life; and underwent the greatest dangers, with a constancy of mind, which showed that he had not only read the rules of philosophy, but understood the practice of them.

In the first Dutch war he went a volunteer under the Duke of York; his behaviour, during that campaign, was such as distinguished the Sackville descended from that Hildebrand of the name, who was one of the greatest captains that came into England with the Conqueror. But his making a song the night before the engagement3 (and it was one of the prettiest that ever was made) carries with it so sedate a presence of mind, and such an unusual gallantry, that it deserves as much to be recorded as Alexander's jesting with his soldiers before he passed the Granicus, or William the First of Orange, giving order over night for a battle, and desiring to be called in the morning lest he should happen to sleep too long.

From hence, during the remaining part of King Charles's reign, he continued to live in honourable leisure. He was of the Bed-chamber to the King, and possessed not only his master's favour, but, in a great degree, his familiarity; never leaving the Court but when he was sent to that of France, on some short commissions and embassies of compliment; as if the King designed to show the French, (who would be thought the politest nation) that one of the finest gentlemen in Europe was his subject; and that we had a Prince who

3 Dr. Johnson has offered a rational solution of this ro mantic anecdote, in his Lives of the Poets.

understood his worth so well, as not to suffer him to be long out of his presence.

The succeeding reign neither relished my Lord's wit nor approved his maxims; so he retired altogether from Court. But as the irretrievable mistakes of that unhappy government went on to threaten the nation with something more terrible than a Dutch war, he thought it became him to resume the courage of his youth, and once more to engage himself in defending the liberty of his country. He entered into the Prince of Orange's interest, and carried on his part of that great enterprise here in London, and under the eye of the Court, with the same resolution as his friend and fellow patriot the late Duke of Devonshire did, in open arms at Nottingham; till the dangers of those times increased to extremity, and just apprehensions arose for the safety of the Princess, our present glorious Queen+: then the Earl of Dorset was thought the properest guide of her necessary flight, and the person under whose courage and direction the nation might most safely trust a charge so precious and important.

After the establishment of their late Majesties upon the throne, there was room again at Court for men of my Lord's character. He had a part in the councils of those princes, a great share in their friendship; and all the marks of distinction with which a good government could reward a patriot. He was made Chamberlain of their Majesties' household, a place which he so eminently adorned by the grace of his person, and the fineness of his breeding, and the knowledge and prac4 Queen Anne.