SOME

PASSAGES

OF THE

Life and Death

OF

JOHN, EARL OF ROCHESTER.

OHN WILMOT, earl of Rochester, was

JOH

born in April, Anno Dom. 1648. His father was Henry, earl of Rochester, but best known by the title of the lord Wilmot, who bore so great a part in all the late wars, that mention is oftener made of him in the history: and had the chief share in the honour of the preservation of his majesty that now reigns, after Worcester fight, and the conveying him from place to place, till he happily escaped into France; but dying before the king's return, he left his son little other inheritance but the honour and title derived to him, with the pretensions such eminent services gave him to the king's favour these were carefully managed by the great prudence and discretion of his mother, a daughter of that noble and ancient family of

:

the St. Johns, of Wiltshire, so that his education was carried on in all things suitably to his quality.

When he was at school, he was an extraordinary proficient at his book; and those shining parts which have since appeared with so much lustre, began then to shew themselves: he acquired the Latin to such perfection, that to his dying day he retained a great relish of the fineness and beauty of that tongue, and was exactly versed in the incomparable authors that writ about Augustus's time, whom he read often with that peculiar delight which the greatest wits have ever found in those studies.

When he went to the university, the general joy which over-ran the whole nation upon his majesty's restoration, but was not regulated with that sobriety and temperance that became a serious gratitude to God for so great a blessing, produced some of its ill effects on him; he began to love these disorders too much: his tutor was that eminent and pious divine, Dr. Blandford, afterwards promoted to the sees of Oxford and Worcester, and under his inspection he was committed to the more immediate care of Mr. Phineas Berry, a fellow of Wadham College, a very learned and good natured man; whom he afterwards ever used with much respect, and rewarded him as became a great man. But the humour of that time wrought so much on him, that he broke off the course of his studies, to which no means could ever effectually recal him; till when he was in Italy, his governor, Dr. Balfour, a learned and worthy man, now a celebrated physician in Scotland, his native country, drew him to read such books as were most likely to bring him back to love learning and study: and he often acknowledged to me, in particular

three days before his death, how much he was obliged to love and honour this his governor, to whom he thought he owed more than to all the world, next after his parents, for his great fidelity and care of him while he was under his trust. But no part of it affected him more sensibly, than that he engaged him by many tricks (so he expressed it) to delight in books and reading; so that ever after he took occasion, in the intervals of those woeful extravagancies that consumed most of his time, to read much; and though the time was generally but indifferently employed, for the choice of the subjects of his studies was not always good, yet the habitual love of knowledge, together with these fits of study, had much awakened his understanding, and prepared him for better things, when his mind should be so far changed as to relish them.

He came from his travels in the eighteenth year of his age, and appeared at court with as great advantages as most ever had. He was a graceful and well-shaped person, tall, and wellmade, if not a little too slender: he was exactly well-bred; and what by a modest behaviour natural to him, what by a civility become almost as natural, his conversation was easy and obliging. He had a strange vivacity of thought, and vigour of expression: his wit had a subtilty and sublimity both, that it was scarce imitable. His style was clear and strong; when he used figures, they were very lively, and yet far enough out of the common road: he had made himself master of the ancient and modern wit, and of the modern French and Italian, as well as the English. He loved to talk and write of speculative matters, and did it with so fine a thread, that even those who hated the subjects that his fancy ran upon, yet could not but be charmed with his way of

treating them. Boileau, among the French, and Cowley, among the English wits, were those he admired most. Sometimes other men's thoughts mixed with his composures; but that flowed rather from the impressions they made on him when he read them, by which they came to return upon him as his own thoughts, than that he servilely copied from any; for few men had a bolder flight of fancy, more steadily governed by judgment, than he had. No wonder a young man so made, and so improved, was very acceptable in a court.

Soon after his coming thither, he laid hold on the first occasion that offered, to shew his readiness to hazard his life in the defence and service of his country. In winter 1665, he went with the earl of Sandwich to sea, when he was sent to lie for a Dutch East India fleet; and was in the Revenge, commanded by Sir Thomas Tiddiman, when the attack was made on the port of Bergen, in Norway, the Dutch ships having got into that port. It was as desperate an attempt as ever was made; during the whole action the earl of Rochester shewed as brave and as resolute a courage as was possible: a person of honour told me he heard the lord Clifford, who was in the same ship, often-magnify his courage at that time very highly. Nor did the rigours of the season, the hardness of the voyage, and the extreme danger he had been in, deter him from running the like on the very next occasion; for the summer following he went to sea again, without communicating his design to his nearest relations. He went aboard the ship commanded by Sir Edward Spragge, the day before the great seafight of that year; almost all the volunteers that were in the same ship were killed. Mr. Middleton, brother to Sir Hugh Middleton, was shot in

his arms: dur-ing the action, Sir Edward Spragge, not being satisfied with the behaviour of one of the captains, could not easily find a person that would cheerfully venture through so much danger, to carry his commands to that captain., This lord offered himself to the service; and went in a little boat through all the shot, and delivered his message, and returned back to Sir Edward, which was much commended by all that saw it. He thought it necessary to begin his life with these demonstrations of his courage,' in an element and way of fighting, which is acknowledged to be the greatest trial of clear and undaunted valour.

He had so entirely laid down the intemperance that was growing on him before his travels, that at his return he hated nothing more. But falling into company that loved these excesses, he was, though not without difficulty, and by many steps, brought back to it again. And the natural heat of his fancy being inflamed by wine, made him so extravagantly pleasant, that many, to be more diverted by that humour, studied to engage him deeper and deeper in intemperance; which at length did so entirely subdue him, that, as he told me, for five years together, he was continually drunk; not all the while under the visible effects of it, but his blood was so inflamed, that he was not in all that time cool enough to be perfectly master of himself. This led him to say and do many wild and unaccountable things; by this he said he had broke the firm constitution of his health, that seemed so strong, that nothing was too hard for it; and he had suffered so much in his reputation, that he almost despaired to recover it. There were two principles in his natural temper, that being heightened by that heat, carried him to great excesses: a violent