Second earl of rochester essay

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From Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets series, published in 3 volumes between and After a grammatical education at the school of Burford, he entered a nobleman into Wadham college inonly twelve years old; and, inat fourteen, was, with some other persons of high rank, made master of arts by lord Clarendon in person.

He travelled afterwards into France and Second earl of rochester essay and, at his return, devoted himself to the court.

In he went to sea with Sandwich, and distinguished himself at Bergen by uncommon intrepidity; and the next summer served again on board sir Edward Spragge, who, in the heat of the engagement, having a message of reproof to send to one of his captains, could find no man ready to carry it but Wilmot, who, in an open boat, went and returned amidst the storm of shot.

But his reputation for bravery was not lasting: He had very early an inclination to intemperance, which he totally subdued in his travels; but, when he became a courtier, he unhappily addicted himself to dissolute and vitious company, by which his principles were corrupted, and his manners depraved.

He lost all sense of religious restraint; and, finding it not convenient to admit the authority of laws, which he was resolved not to obey, sheltered his wickedness behind infidelity. As he excelled in that noisy and licentious merriment which wine incites, his companions eagerly encouraged him in excess, and he willingly indulged it; till, as he confessed to Dr.

Burnet, he was for five years together continually drunk, or so much inflamed by frequent ebriety, as in no interval to be master of himself.

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In this state he played many frolicks, which it is not for his honour that we should remember, and which are not now distinctly known.

He often pursued low amours in mean disguises, and always acted with great exactness and dexterity the characters which he assumed. He once erected a stage on Tower hill, and harangued the populace as a mountebank; and, having made physick part of his study, is said to have practised it successfully.

He was so much in favour with king Charles, that he was made one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, and comptroller of Woodstock park. Having an active and inquisitive mind, he never, except in his paroxysms of intemperance, was wholly negligent of study: Sometimes he retired into the country, and amused himself with writing libels, in which he did not pretend to confine himself to truth.

His favourite author in French was Boileau, and in English Cowley. Thus in a course of drunken gaiety, and gross sensuality, with intervals of study, perhaps, yet more criminal, with an avowed contempt of all decency and order, a total disregard of every moral, and a resolute denial of every religious obligation, he lived worthless and useless, and blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness, till, at the age of one-and-thirty, he had exhausted the fund of life, and reduced himself to a state of weakness and decay.

At this time he was led to an acquaintance with Dr. Burnet, to whom he laid open, with great freedom, the tenour of his opinions, and the course of his life, and from whom he received such conviction of the reasonableness of moral duty, and the truth of Christianity, as produced a total change both of his manners and opinions.

Charles Dryden

The account of those salutary conferences is given by Burnet in a book entitled, Some Passages of the Life and Death of John, Earl of Rochester, which the critick ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety.

It were an injury to the reader to offer him an abridgment. He died July 26,before he had completed his thirty-fourth year; and was so worn away by a long illness, that life went out without a struggle.

Lord Rochester was eminent for the vigour of his colloquial wit, and remarkable for many wild pranks and sallies of extravagance. The glare of his general character diffused itself upon his writings; the compositions of a man whose name was heard so often, were certain of attention, and from many readers certain of applause.

This blaze of reputation is not yet quite extinguished; and his poetry still retains some splendour beyond that which genius has bestowed.

Wood and Burnet give us reason to believe, that much was imputed to him which he did not write. I know not by whom the original collection was made, or by what authority its genuineness was ascertained.

The first edition was published in the year of his death, with an air of concealment, professing, in the titlepage, to be printed at Antwerp. Of some of the pieces, however, there is no doubt:This essay will survey Rochester’s literary relationship with the city to show how his writing revealingly reflects the changing political, social and religious ’, English, of Rochester ’,, and Nicholas Fisher John.

nd Earl of Rochester (): Poet and Man about Towne’. John Wilmot, the second earl of Rochester (and therefore traditionally referred to as "Rochester") was the most famous--and notorious— writer of the Restoration period in Britain.

A poet and dramatist, Rochester became as well known for the scandalous life he led as for his writing. Rochester is the period's most notable instance of what was known as a libertine. Second Earl of Rochester Essay The satirists shared a talent for making other individuals feel uncomfortable, particularly by making them aware of their own moral inadequacies.

They used irony, derision, and wit to attack human vice or folly. That Second Bottle: Essays on John Wilmot, Earl of of the Earl of Rochester ’s birth with aconferenceatWadham College, Oxford, that resulted in this handsome volume of fifteen essays.

Mr. Fisher’s Introduction usefully surveys Rochester criticism. Beginning a section on love and friendship in Rochester,Warren Chernaik’s essay draws. The Works of The Earl of Rochester (Wordsworth Poetry Library) An Epistolary Essay From M.g. To O.b. Upon Mutual Poems The Fall Fragment Grecian Kindness: A Song Second Prologue At Court To 'the Empress Of Morocco', By Lady Howard Signior Dildo A Song (1) Song (1) Song (10)Author: J.

Rochester. The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. Alexander Pope,The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope This collection includes Pope’s poems, translations of Ovid and Homer, An Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, An Essay on Man, and his Moral Essays.

Earl of Rochester On Silence Earl of Dorset Artemisia Dr.