ROSCOMMON. [WENTWORTH DILLON, Earl of Roscommon, was born in Ireland in 1634. He spent the best part of his life in France and Italy, and died in London Jan. 17, 1684-85.] Lord Roscommon was a man of taste and judgment, who had imbibed in France a liking for Academic forms of literature, and who attempted to be to English poetry what Boileau was to French. He did not come forward as a writer till late in life, when he produced two thin quartos of frigid critical poetry, An Essay on Translated Verse, 1681, and Horace's Art of Poetry, 1684. There was little originality in these polite exercises, but they were smoothly and sensibly written, with a certain gentlemanlike austerity. Pope has noted that, 'in all Charles' days, Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays.' He was the friend of Dryden, and the admirer of Milton, whose sublimity he lauded in terms that recall the later praise of Addison. EDMUND. W. GOSSE. FROM THE ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE.' On sure foundations let your fabric rise, But strict harmonious symmetry of parts, Which through the whole insensibly must pass, With vital heat to animate the mass; A pure, an active, an auspicious flame, And bright as heaven, from whence the blessing came; But few, few spirits, pre-ordained by fate, The race of gods, have reached that envied height; No rebel Titan's sacrilegious crime, By heaping hills on hills, can thither climb. The grizly ferry-man of hell denied Æneas entrance, till he knew his guide; How justly then will impious mortals fall, Whose pride would soar to heaven without a call? The Muse instruct my voice, and thou inspire the Muse! DORSET. [CHARLES SACKVILLE, Earl of Dorset, was born January 24, 1637. Immediately after the Restoration he was elected to represent East Grinstead in parliament, and distinguished himself in the House of Commons. He went as a volunteer to the First Dutch War in 1665, and after this devoted himself to a learned leisure. He succeeded to the earldom in 1677, and again took a part in public business till 1698, when his health failed. He died at Bath, January 29, 1705-6.] It is recorded of Lord Dorset that he refused all offers of political preferment in early life that he might give his mind more thoroughly to study. He was the friend and patron of almost all the poets from Waller to Pope; Dryden adored him in one generation, and Prior in the next: nor was the courtesy that produced this affection mere idle complaisance, for no one was more fierce than he in denouncing mediocrity and literary pretension. Of all the poetical noblemen of the Restoration, Lord Dorset alone reached old age, yet with all these opportunities and all this bias towards the art, the actual verse he has left behind him is miserably small. A splendid piece of society verse, a few songs, some extremely foul and violent satires, these are all that have survived to justify in the eyes of posterity the boundless reputation of Lord Dorset. The famous song was written in 1665, when the author, at the age of twenty-eight, had volunteered under the Duke of York in the first Dutch war. It was composed at sea the night before the critical engagement in which the Dutch admiral Opdam was blown up, and thirty ships destroyed or taken. It may be considered as inaugurating the epoch of vers-de-société, as it has flourished from Prior down to Austin Dobson. EDMUND W. GOSSE. SONG WRITTEN AT SEA. To all you Ladies now at land But first would have you understand The Muses now, and Neptune too, For though the Muses should prove kind, Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind Our paper, pen, and ink, and we, Then if we write not by each post, The King with wonder and surprise Than e'er they did of old; But let him know it is our tears Should foggy Opdam chance to know The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe, For what resistance can they find From men who've left their hearts behind? Let wind and weather do its worst, Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse, 'Tis then no matter how things go, Or who's our friend, or who's our foc. To pass our tedious hours away, But why should we in vain But now our fears tempestuous grow Perhaps permit some happier man When any mournful tune you hear, As if it sighed with each man's care, Think then how often love we've made In justice you can not refuse To think of our distress, When we for hopes of honour lose All those designs are but to prove And now we've told you all our loves, |