Jam primum terram validis circumfpice clauftris The positive sense is generally preserved, with great kill, through the whole poem; though fometimes, in a fubordinate fenfe, the negative nothing is injudiciously mingled. Pafferat confounds the two fenfes. Another of his moft vigorous pieces is his Lampoon on Sir Car Scroop, who, in a poem called The Praise of Satire, had fome lines like these * : He who can pufsh into a midnight fray This was meant of Rochester, whofe buffoon conceit was, I fuppofe, a faying often mentioned, that every Man would be a Coward if he durft; and drew from him thofe furious verfes; to which Scroop made in reply an epigram, ending with these lines: Thou canst hurt no man's fame with thy ill word; Of the fatire against Man, Rochester can only claim what remains when all Boileau's part is taken away. In all his works there is sprightliness and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind which study might have carried to excellence. What more can be expected from a life fpent in oftentatious contempt of regularity, and ended before the abilities of many other men began to be difplayed? * I quote from memory. Orig. Edit. Poema Poema Cl. V. JOANNIS PASSERATII, Regii in Academia Parifienfi Profefforis, Ad ornatiffimum virum ERRICUM MEMMIUM, Janus adeft, feftæ pofcunt fua dona Kalendæ, Ufque adeò ingenii noftri eft exhaufta facultas, Aufonie indi&tum NIHIL eft Græcæque Camona. Ad magnas quia ducit opes, & culmen honorum. Nec numeret Libycæ numerum qui callet arenæ : Vexerit & quemvis trans moeftas portitor undas, Ne tibi fi multa laudem mea carminą chartą, De NIHILO NIHILI pariant faftidią versus. **The particulars of fo immoral a life as that of the Earl of Rochester, were it not for his penitence at the clofe of it, had per haps better have been fuffered to fink into oblivion than recorded. Nevertheless, it is faid that his manners were elegant, and that they are truly reprefented in the perfon of Dorimant, a character in Sir George Etherege's comedy of the Man of Mode, drawn with exqui fite art and from the life. Biogr. Brit. 1843, in not. ROS ROSCOM MO N. W WENTWORTH DILLON, Earl of Rof-. common, was the fon of James Dillon and Elizabeth Wentworth, fifter to the earl of Strafford. He was born in Ireland, during the lieutenancy of Strafford, who, being both his uncle and his godfather, gave him his own furname. His father, the third earl, of Rofcommon, had been converted by Ufher to the proteftant religion; and when the popifh rebellion broke out, Strafford thinking the family in great danger from the fury of the Irifh, fent for his godfon, and placed him at his own feat in Yorkshire, where he was inftru&ted in Latin; which he learned fo as to write it with purity and elegance, though he was never able to retain the rules of grammar. Such is the account given by Mr. Fenton, from whofe notes on Waller most of this account must be borrowed, though I know not whether all that he relates is certain. The inftructor whom he affigns to Rofcommon is one Dr. Hall, by whom he cannot mean the famous Hall, then an old man and a bifhop. When |