SACKVILLE, Charles, Lord Buckhurst and Earl of Dorset, a poet and wit, was born on the 24th of January 1637-8. After receiving a private education, he visited Italy; and returning to England shortly before the Restoration, sat in Parliament for East Grimstead in Sussex. Being of wild and dissolute habits, he became a great favourite of Charles II., and did not choose to engage in any public employment. He attended the Duke of York as a volunteer in the Dutch war of 1665, and is said to have composed the celebrated song, "To all you ladies now at land," on the eve of the 3d of June, when the Dutch were defeated, and Opham, their admiral, slain. Buckhurst was soon after made a gentleman of the bed-chamber, and sent a short embassy to France on one of those missions, which was, according to Dryden, "a sleeveless errand." Charles II. had become enamoured of Nell Gwyn, with whom Buckhurst was then living, and this little journey to France was contrived by the king to get rid of his rival. In 1674 he became heir to the estate and title of his maternal uncle, the Earl of Middlesex; and in 1677, by the death of his father, he inherited the title of Earl of Dorset and the whole of the family estates. He buried his first wife in 1684, and subsequently married a daughter of the Earl of Northampton, a woman of beauty and superior mind, who may still be seen among the Kneller beauties at Hampton Court. Dorset was taken favourable notice of by James II., but ceased to adhere to his policy on his becoming more violent in his measures. On the accession of King William III. he was made lord chamberlain of the household, and received the honour of the Garter. His health afterwards declining, he died at Bath on the 29th January 1705-6.
The epitaph of Dorset was written by Pope; Dryden penned dedications and fulsome panegyrics to him; and Prior eulogized his excellencies in the most elaborate manner. He was distinguished among his contemporaries for his elegant manners, sprightly wit, and courtly address; and his bounty to the learned may be judged of by the number of dedications which were addressed to "the witty Earl." His poetical pieces are, according to Johnson, "the effusions of a man of wit,—gay, vigorous, and airy." (Johnson's Lives of the Poets, by Cunningham.)