Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/454

 the infernal regions that he may see the sad estate of those ruined by their ambition, and thus learn the transient character of earthly joy. At the approaches of Hell he sees a group of terrible abstractions, Remorse of Conscience, Dread, Misery, Revenge, Care, &c., each vividly described. The last of these was War, on whose shield he saw depicted the great battles of antiquity. Finally, penetrating to the realm of Pluto himself, he is surrounded by the shades, of whom the duke of Buckingham is the first to advance, thus introducing the Complaint. To this induction the epithet “Dantesque” has been frequently applied, but in truth Sackville’s models were Gavin Douglas and Virgil. The dignity and artistic quality of the narrative of the fall of Buckingham are in strong contrast to the crude attempts of Ferrers and Baldwin, and make the work one of the most important between the Canterbury Tales and the Faerie Queene.

Sackville has also the credit of being part author with Thomas Norton of the first legitimate tragedy in the English language. This was Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex, performed as part of the Christmas festivities (1560–1561) by the society of the Inner Temple, and afterwards on the 18th of January 1561 before Elizabeth at Whitehall. The argument is as follows:

The argument shows plainly enough the didactic intention of the whole, and points the moral of the evils of civil discord. The story is taken from Book II. chap. xvi. of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history. It was first printed (1565) in an unauthorized edition as The Tragedie of Gorboduc “whereof three Actes were wrytten by Thomas Nortone, and the two laste by Thomas Sackvyle.” Norton’s share has been generally minimized, and it seems safe to assume that Sackville is responsible for the general design. In 1570 appeared an authentic edition, The Tragedie of Ferrex and Porrex, with a preface from the printer to the reader stating that the authors were “very much displeased that she (the tragedy) so ran abroad without leave.” The tragedies of Seneca were now being translated, and the play is conceived on Senecan lines. The plot was no doubt chosen for its accumulated horrors from analogy with the tragic subjects of Oedipus and Thyestes. None of the crimes occur on the stage, but the action is described in lofty language by the characters. The most famous and harrowing scene is that in which Marcello relates the murder of Porrex by his mother (Act IV. sc. ii.). The paucity of action is eked out by a dumb show to precede each act, and the place of the Chorus is supplied by four “ancient and sage men of Britain.” In the variety of incident, however, the authors departed from the classical model. The play is written in excellent blank verse, and is the first example of the application of Surrey’s innovation to drama. Jasper Heywood in the poetical address prefixed to his translation of the Thyestes alludes to “Sackvylde’s Sonnets sweetly sauste,” but only one of these has survived. It is prefixed to Sir T. Hoby’s translation of Castiglione’s Courtier. Sackville’s poetical preoccupations are sufficiently marked in the subject matter of these two works, which remain the sole literary productions of an original mind.

(1591–1652), son of the 2nd earl, succeeded his brother Richard, the 3rd earl (1590–1624), in March 1624. He had attained much notoriety by killing Edward Bruce, 2nd Lord Kinloss, in a duel, in August 1613, the place in the Netherlands where this encounter took place being called Bruceland in quite recent times, and in 1620 he was one of the leaders of the English contingent which fought for James I.’s son-in-law, Frederick V., elector palatine of the Rhine, at the battle of the White Hill, near Prague. In the House of Commons, where he represented Sussex, Sackville was active in defending Bacon and in advocating an aggressive policy with regard to the recovery of the Rhenish Palatinate; twice he was ambassador to France, and he was interested in Virginia and the Bermuda Islands. Under Charles I. he was a privy councillor and lord chamberlain to Queen Henrietta Maria. He was frequently employed by the government from the accession of Charles until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he joined the king at York, but he disliked the struggle and was constant in his efforts to secure peace. At Oxford he was lord chamberlain to the king and lord president of his council, but Charles did not altogether approve of his pacific attitude, and is said on one occasion to have remarked to him “Your voice is the voice of Jacob, but your hands are the hands of Esau.” He died on the 17th of July 1652. His wife Mary (d. 1645), daughter of Sir George Curzon, was governess to the sons of Charles I., the future kings Charles II. and James II. His character is thus summed up by S. R. Gardiner: “Pre-eminent in beauty of person, and in the vigour of a cultivated intellect, he wanted nothing to fit him for the highest places in the commonwealth but that stern sense of duty without which no man can be truly great.”

(1638–1706), English poet and courtier, son of Richard Sackville, 5th earl (1622–1677), was born on the 24th of January 1638. His mother was Frances Cranfield, sister and heiress of Lionel, 3rd earl of Middlesex, to whose estates and title he succeeded in 1674, being created Baron Cranfield and 4th earl of Middlesex in 1675. He succeeded to his father’s estates and title in August 1677. Buckhurst was educated privately, and spent some time abroad with a private tutor, returning to England shortly before the Restoration. In Charles II.’s first parliament he sat for East Grinstead in Sussex. He had no taste for politics, however, but won a reputation as courtier and wit at Whitehall. He bore his share in the excesses for which Sir Charles Sedley and the earl of Rochester were notorious. In 1662 he and his brother Edward, with three other gentlemen, were indicted for the robbery and murder of a tanner named Hoppy. The defence was that they were in pursuit of thieves, and mistook Hoppy for a highwayman. They appear to have been acquitted, for when in 1663 Sir Charles Sedley was tried for a gross breach of public decency in Covent Garden, Buckhurst, who had been one of the offenders, was asked by the lord chief justice “whether he had so soon forgot his deliverance at that time.” Something in his character made his follies less obnoxious to the citizens than those of the other rakes, for he was never altogether unpopular, and Rochester is said to have told Charles II. that he did not “know how it was, my Lord Dorset might do anything, yet was never to blame.” In 1665 he volunteered to serve under the duke of York in the Dutch War. His famous song, “To all you ladies now at Land,” was written, according to Prior, on the night before the victory gained over “foggy Opdam” off Harwich (June 3, 1665). Dr Johnson, with the remark that “seldom any splendid story is wholly true,” says that the earl of Orrery had told him it was only retouched on that occasion. In 1667 Pepys laments that Buckhurst had lured Nell Gwyn away from the theatre, and that with Sedley the two kept “merry house” at Epsom. Next year the king was paying court to Nell, and her “Charles the First,” as she called Buckhurst, was sent on a “sleeveless errand” into France to be out of the way. His gaiety and wit secured the continued favour of Charles II., but did not especially recommend him to James II., who could not, moreover, forgive Dorset’s lampoons on his mistress, Catharine Sedley, countess of Dorchester. On James’s accession, therefore, he retired from court. He concurred in the invitation to William of Orange, who made him privy councillor, lord chamberlain (1689), and knight of the Garter (1692). During