THE EARL OF DORSET.
This noble earl was rather a patron of poets than a poet, and possessed
more wit than genius. Charles Sackville was born on the 24th January
1637. He was descended directly from the famous Thomas, Lord Buckhurst.
He was educated under a private tutor, travelled in Italy, and returned
in time to witness the Restoration. In the first parliament thereafter,
he sat for East Grinstead, in Surrey, and might have distinguished
himself, had he not determined, in common with almost all the wits of
the time, to run a preliminary career of dissipation. What a proof of
the licentiousness of these times is to be found in the fact, that young
Lord Buckhurst, Sir Charles Sedley, and Sir Thomas Ogle were fined for
exposing themselves, drunk and naked, in indecent postures on the public
street! In 1665, the erratic energies of Buckhurst found a more
legitimate vent in the Dutch war. He attended the Duke of York in the
great sea-fight of the 3d June, in which Opdam, the Dutch admiral, was,
with all his crew, blown up. He is said to have composed the song,
quoted afterwards, 'To all you ladies now at land,' on the evening
before the battle, although Dr Johnson (who observes that seldom any
splendid story is wholly true) maintains that its composition cost him
a whole week, and that he only retouched it on that remarkable evening.
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