ABSTRACT
John Wilmot Earl of Rochester, Viscount Athlone in Ireland, and Baron of Adderbury in Oxfordshire, was born at Dichley near Wodstock in the said County,…April 1648,1 educated in Grammar learning in the Free-school at Burford, under a noted Master called John Martin, became a Nobleman of Wadham College under the tuition of Phineas Bury Fellow, and inspection of Mr. Blandford the Warden, an. 1659, actually created Master of Arts in Convocation, with several other noble persons, an. 1661; at which time, he, and none else, was admitted very affectionately into the fraternity by a kiss on the left cheek from the Chancellour of the University (Clarendon) who then sate in the supreme chair to honour that Assembly. Afterwards he travelled into France and Italy, and at his return frequented the Court (which not only debauched him but made him a perfect Hobbist) and was at length made one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to his Majesty King Charles II and Controller of Wodstock Park, in the place of Sir William Fleetwood deceased. He was a person of most rare parts, and his natural talent was excellent, much improved by learning and industry, being thoroughly acquainted with all classick Authors, both Greek and Latine; a thing very rare (if not peculiar to him) among those of his quality.2 He knew also how to use them, not as other Poets have done, to transcribe and steal from, but rather to better and improve, them by his fancy.1 But the eager tendency and violent impulses of his natural temper, unhappily inclining him to the excesses of Pleasure and Mirth; which, with the pleasantness of his unimitable humour, did so far engage the affections of the Dissolute towards him, that to make him delightfully ventrous and frolicksome to the utmost degrees of riotous extravagancy, they for some years heightened his spirits (enflamed by wine) into one almost uninterrupted fit of wantonness and intemperance. Some time before his death, were several copies of his verses printed (beside what went in MS. from hand to hand) among which were,
A Satyr against Mankind-Printed in one sheet in fol. in June 1679. Answer’d in another sheet in the next month by one Mr. Griffith a Minister.2 Andr. Marvell, who was a good Judge of wit, did use to say that Rochester was the only man in England that had the true vein of Satyr.3
