Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/71

 of Lords, and in 1674 he received a special mark of royal favour by being appointed keeper of Woodstock Park, with a lodge called ‘High Lodge’ for residence. On 24 Nov. 1670 Evelyn met him at dinner at the lord treasurer's, and described him as ‘a profane wit’ (, Diary, ii. 254). In June 1676 he, (Sir) George Etherege, and three friends engaged in a drunken frolic at Epsom, ending in a skirmish with ‘the watch at Epsom,’ in the course of which one of the roisterers (Downes) received a fatal wound (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 467; Hatton Correspondence, i. 133).

Meanwhile Rochester played the rôle of a patron of the poets, and showed characteristic fickleness in his treatment of them. He was a shrewd and exacting critic, as his caustic and ill-natured remarks in his clever imitation of the ‘Tenth Satire’ of Horace, bk. i., and in the ‘Session of the Poets’ (printed in his works), amply prove. About 1670 he showed many attentions to Dryden, who flattered him extravagantly when dedicating to him his ‘Marriage à la Mode’ (1673). But Rochester fell out with Dryden's chief patron, John Sheffield, earl of Mulgrave [q. v.]; he is said to have engaged in a duel with Mulgrave and to have shown the white feather. By way of retaliating on Mulgrave, he soon ostentatiously disparaged Dryden and encouraged Dryden's feeble rivals, Elkanah Settle and John Crowne. He contrived to have Settle's tragedy, ‘The Empress of Morocco,’ acted at Whitehall in 1671, and wrote a prologue, which he spoke himself. Crowne dedicated to him his ‘Charles VIII of France’ next year, and at the earl's suggestion he wrote the ‘Masque of Calisto,’ which Rochester recommended for performance at court in 1675. The younger dramatists Nathaniel Lee and Thomas Otway also shared his favours for a time. In 1675 he commended Otway's ‘Alcibiades,’ and interested the Duke of York in the young author. Otway dedicated to him his ‘Titus and Berenice’ in 1677; but when the dramatist ventured to make advances to Rochester's mistress, Mrs. Barry the actress, Rochester showed him small mercy. Lee, who dedicated to Rochester ‘Nero,’ his first piece, commemorated his patronage in his description of Count Rosidore in his ‘Princess of Cleves,’ which was first produced in November 1681. Another protégé, whom Rochester treated with greater constancy, was John Oldham (1653–1683) [q. v.] Sir George Etherege is said to have drawn from Rochester the character of the libertine Dorimant in the ‘Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter,’ which was first acted at the Duke's Theatre in 1676 (, Works, ed. Verity, p. xiv; cf., Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre, 1660–1744, Paris, 1881, pp. 92 sq.)

In 1679 Rochester's health failed, although he was able to correspond gaily with his friend Henry Savile on the congenial topics of wine and women. During his convalescence in the autumn he, to the surprise of his friends, sought recreation in reading the first part of Gilbert Burnet's ‘History of the Reformation.’ He invited the author to visit him, and encouraged him to talk of religion and morality. Rochester, in his feeble condition of body, seems to have found Burnet's conversation consolatory. In April 1680 he left London for the High Lodge at Woodstock Park. The journey aggravated his ailments, and he began to recognise that recovery was impossible. He showed signs of penitence for his misspent life. After listening attentively to the pious exhortations of his chaplain, Robert Parsons (1647–1714) [q. v.], he wrote on 25 June to Burnet begging him to come and receive his deathbed repentance. Burnet arrived on 20 July, and remained till the 24th, spending the four days in spiritual discourse. ‘I do verily believe,’ Burnet wrote, ‘he was then so entirely changed that, if he had recovered, he would have made good all his resolutions.’ Rochester died two days after Burnet left him, on 26 July. He was buried in the north aisle of Spelsbury church in Oxfordshire, but without any monument or inscribed stone to distinguish his grave (cf., Woodstock, suppl. 1874, pp. 25–36). His bed is still preserved at High Lodge.

Rochester's will, with a codicil dated 22 June 1680, was proved on 23 Feb. 1680–1. His executors included, besides his wife and mother, whom he entreated to live in amity with one another, Sir Walter St. John, his mother's brother, and Sir Allen Apsley (1616–1683) [q. v.] Settlements had already been made on his wife and son; 4,000l. was left to each of his three daughters; an annuity of 40l. was bestowed on an infant named Elizabeth Clerke; and other sums were bequeathed to servants (Wills from Doctors' Commons, Camd. Soc., pp. 139–41).

Sympathetic elegies came from the pens of Mrs. Anne Wharton, Jack How [i.e. John Grubham Howe [q.v.] ], Edmund Waller (Examen Miscellaneum, 1702), Thomas Flatman, and Oldham. His chaplain, Robert Parsons, preached a funeral sermon which gave a somewhat sensational account of his ‘death and repentance,’ and attracted general attention when it was published. A more edificatory account of Rochester's