WILMOT, JOHN, Earl of Rochester, a licentious wit and satirical poet, was born on the 10th of April 1647 at Ditchley in Oxfordshire. He received his education first at Burford, and afterwards at Wadham College, Oxford, which he entered in 1659, and received his master's degree in 1661. After travelling in France and Italy, he devoted himself to the court. Going to sea in 1665, he distinguished himself for his intrepidity, but his bravery seems to have deserted him as soon as he left the salt water. An early inclination to intemperance was indulged by the license of the court, and Rochester, who was a brilliant and dashing wit, soon had his morals corrupted and his manners depraved. He told Dr Burnet that he had been continually drunk for five years, and his gross licentiousness was only equalled by his scandalous infidelity. Aubrey says of him, that when living in the country, Rochester lived a blameless life, but "when he came to Brentford, the devil entered into him, and never left him till he returned to the country again." His drunken pranks and sallies of extravagance are endless. Now he was a mountebank and harangued the mob from Tower-hill; again he was an alchemist, and hoodwinked old women and some young ones by the dexterity of his personation. Yet he was much in favour with the king, who made him one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber and ranger of Woodstock Park. Dryden, Otway, and Crowne, all dedicated dramas to him, yet in his tyrannical capriciousness he lampooned all three, and had Dryden cudgelled. A life thus spent in ostentatious contempt of every rule of civilized society, at last ended in a state of weakness and decay. Wilmot died at the premature age of thirty-four years, on the 26th July 1680. Bishop Burnet wrote a book about the "total change" of the profligate's manners and opinions which followed his lordship's acquaintance with him. Rochester, according to Burnet, "was a graceful and well-shaped person, tall and well made, if not a little too slender." Much doubt exists regarding Rochester's poetical pieces. There is an "Antwerp" (which means in this case forbidden) edition, published in 1680, a more obscene one still in 2 vols. 1731-2, besides numerous castrated editions, but all incomplete. There is
least doubt about his Imitation of Horace's Satire, his Verses to Lord Mulgrave, his Satire against Man, and his Verses upon Nothing. His poems possess much sprightliness and vigour, and "everywhere," as Dr Johnson remarks, "may be found tokens of a mind which study might have carried to excellence."