Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

comedy of The Rehearsal,' was the first composition of the kind in our language, and although the plays it professed to ridicule are forgotten, and the taste it censured has long been exploded, it still remains an original master-piece of humour and artifice. It was published in 4to. during the year 1672, and has never since been out of print; thus its success was prodigious, and its popularity unvaried. His name also appears to three other plays: 'The Chances,' which is nothing more than an avowed alteration from the comedy written under the same title by Beaumont and Fletcher; The Battle of Sedgemoor,' a farce, and The Restoration,' a comedy. A complete edition of his works, comprising essays, poems, and plays, was collected by T. Evans, of the Strand, in 2 vols. 8vo. 1775: they have all of them been republished. One benefit, of equal taste and utility, conferred by Buckingham on his country, was the manufacture of crystal glass, an art which he introduced from Venice. In connection with the habits of observation which led him to appreciate that improvement, it is also to be observed, that he was an experimenter in alchemy, and was weak enough, during the derangement of his fortune, to hope for wealth from the observance of its secrets.

[ocr errors]

Buckingham died without issue, and his titles, consequently, became extinct with his person. Like his father, he was an unfaithful husband, but with this difference, that whereas the former was always attentive and affectionate to his duchess, the latter was brutally neglectful of his lady. As in politics, so in love, he had many intrigues, of which the most notorious was one with the Countess of Salisbury, a wanton, who had the hardihood to hold his horse while he killed her husband in a duel.

Buckingham satirised Dryden in the Rehearsal, and Dryden retaliated in Absalom and Achitophel. The character thus drawn, though faithful, is yet too long and too coarse for insertion here. The following lines, therefore, must suffice :

A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was every thing by fits, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.

[ocr errors]

SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM,
K. G.

Great Sheffield's Muse the long procession heads,
And throws a lustre o'er the pomp she leads;
First, gives the palm she fired him to obtain,
Crowns his gay brow, and shows him how to reign.

LORD HARCOURT.

In a recess to the eastern extremity of Henry VIIth's chapel, stands a striking monument to John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, who married Catherine, a natural daughter of James II. This lady survived him, and it is to her affection we owe the present record of his grace's deserts. It is the work of Scheemakers, and though not to be extolled as a model of the purest chiselling or expression, is yet decidedly effective both in design and execution. On an elevated altarpiece, surmounted by a pyramid, and profusely relieved with emblematical ornaments, is a recumbent figure of the duke in the attire of a Roman warrior, modelled with great freedom and nature; and at his feet appears a weeping lady, whose attitude is pourtrayed with a delicacy not far removed from all that is beautiful in the art. There is one prominent absurdity, however, in the design, which cannot fail to be remarked with censure. Though he had several children born to him, he died childless. To represent this misfortune, the artist has crowned the design with a figure of Time in full march, carrying off with him medallions of the little family. Now the only inference to be drawn from this act of making away with the portraits, is that the memory of the infants is not to endure,— a direct contravention of the ends for which all monumental tri

butes are obviously made. There are two Latin inscriptions upon the tomb; the one on the altar is a particular enumeration of the different titles borne by the deceased, and the various offices of trust and emolument, civil as well as military, discharged by him, The other, engraved in letters of gold, is to this curious purport:

* I lived doubtful, not dissolute;

I die unresolved, not unresigned;

Ignorance and error are incident to human nature.
In God,

Omnipotent and most benevolent, I confide;
Being of Beings have mercy on me!

On the altar-piece itself are two more lines :-

For my king often, for my country ever.

Catherine Duchess of Buckingham in sorrow erected this, MDCCXXII.

John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, has many claims upon the grateful notice of biography. A good soldier, and an honest statesman, he ranks conspicuous amongst the nobility of eventful period, during which brave men and clever abounded. As generous as rich, his integrity was remarkable in a rank where the virtue is seldom estimated, and in an age during which it was most flagrantly disregarded. He is moreover entitled by other distinctions to honourable record; a scholar and a poet, he was the patron of Dryden, and the friend of Pope. To the honour of the former, he erected the monument still standing in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey; and to the care of the latter, he,

[ocr errors][merged small]

Pro Rege sæpe, pro Republicâ semper.

Catherina Buckinghamiæ Ducissa morens extrui curavit, anno MDCCXXII.

at his death, entrusted the publication of his manuscripts. Literary exercises were a fashion amongst the nobility of his age; the Earls of Rochester, Roscommon, and Dorset, were his rivals; and perhaps the character of his attainments may be estimated with the greatest certainty, by the fact, that as he cultivated the intimacy of men of letters with respect, and preserved it with fidelity, so they have left behind them a more flattering summary of his talents and performances, than any of his contemporary nobles were so fortunate as to obtain.

Sheffield was the son of Edmund, Earl of Mulgrave, and born in the year 1649. He lost his father at a tender age, and made his first progress in learning at home, where it is interesting to observe, that the earliest efforts of his youth strongly evinced a superiority of mind. Becoming dissatisfied at the age of twelve with the line of study enforced upon him, he dismissed his tutor, and set about finishing his education upon a plan of his own. The proficiency he acquired in polite literature, is otherwise surprising, as he was an officer in the navy, and upon active service, when only in his seventeenth year. This was on the expedition against the Dutch, commanded by the Duke of Albemarle and Prince Rupert, and he had the honour of sailing in the same vessel with those illustrious generals. Some obstacles prevented the advance of the fleet with that despatch which was at first intended, and Sheffield returned on land, without having had an opportunity to distinguish himself. His zeal, however, was recompensed by the command of a body of independent cavalry, raised for the express purpose of protecting the coast against the casualty of an invasion. Such was his repute at this period that he was summoned to take a seat in Parliament ; but, in consequence of the objections urged against his minority, the service was ultimately dispensed with, and he went to the Dutch war of 1672, as a volunteer. His behaviour on this occasion was reported in terms of such high praise by the gallant Earl of Ossory, under whose authority he sailed, that, as a token of the confidence placed in his abilities, he was appointed Captain of the Royal Catherine, at that time the best second-rate vessel in the navy.

is

The next assistance we find him rendering to his country by raising a regiment of infantry at his own expense, with which,

pursuant to the directions of Prince Rupert, he proceeded to the relief of Marshal Schomberg. Being honoured with the command of a second regiment, styled the Old Holland, his conduct again received the approbation of his general. Meantime he was complimented with the order of the garter, and the post of a Lord of the Bedchamber; and by all this influence was enabled to have the honour of recommending Dryden to the laureate. Passing into France, to perfect his knowledge in the science of war, he served under Turenne: but his stay was of short duration; for becoming a competitor with the Duke of Monmouth for the captaincy of a troop of horse guards, the latter succeeded to the post, and Sheffield returned to England in pique. He now attached himself to the Duke of York, and was considered the most zealous of that party in representing the dangers to be dreaded from the presumption of Monmouth. This rivalship may be held confirmed by the fact, that upon the subsequent disgrace of Monmouth, Sheffield was named his successor in the Lieutenancy of Yorkshire, and the rank of military governor of Hull.

The activity necessarily required for these various functions, and the labours that led to them, may be supposed to have left him but little leisure or inclination for a cultivation of letters. The contrary, however, is the fact; for amidst the gaiety of the court, and even under the cares of warfare, he paid constant suit to the Muses. The first poem of any note which he is known to have produced is "The Vision," written in 1680, during a voyage to relieve Tangiers from an attack of the Moors, who threatened to wrest the place from our hands.*. The expedition

* Connected with this expedition is a monument in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey, on which a copy of the inscription will sufficiently, for the interest of these pages, describe the purport :

[ocr errors]

"Sacred to the immortal memory of Sir PALMES FAIRBORNE, Knight, Governor of Tangier, in the execution of which command he was mortally wounded by a shot from the Moors then besieging the town, in the 46th year of his age, October the 24th, 1680."

After this is engraved an epitaph, which, as the composition of Dryden, is also given :

Ye sacred relics, which your marble keep
Here, undisturbed by wars, in quiet sleep;

« PreviousContinue »