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CHAP.

VIII.

ill

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

posts in the state; but he was born to rank so high and wealth■ so ample that many of the motives which impel men to engagein public affairs were wanting to him. He took just so muchpart in parliamentary and diplomatic business as sufficed toshow that he wanted nothing but inclination to rival Danbyand Sunderland, and turned away to pursuits which pleasedhim better. Like many other men who, with great naturalabilities, are constitutionally and habitually indolent, hebecame an intellectual voluptuary, and a master of all thosepleasing branches of knowledge which can be acquired with-out severe application. He was allowed to be the best judgeof painting, of sculpture, of architecture, of acting, thatthe Court could show. On questions of polite learning hisdecisions were regarded at all the coffee-houses as withoutappeal. More than one clever play which had failed on thefirst representation was supported by his single authorityagainst the whole clamour of the pit, and came forth success-ful from the second trial. The delicacy of his taste in Frenchcomposition was extolled by SaintEvremond and LaFontaine.Such a patron of letters England had never seen. His bountywas bestowed with equal judgment and liberality, and wasconfined to no sect or faction. Men of genius, estrangedfrom each other by literary jealousy or by difference of poli-tical opinion, joined in acknowledging his impartial kindness.Dryden owned that he had been saved from ruin by Dorset’sprincely generosity. Yet Montague and Prior, who hadkeenly satirised Dryden, were introduced by Dorset intopublic life; and the best comedy of Dryden’s mortal enemy,Shadwell, was written at Dorset’s country seat. The muni-ficent Earl might, if such had been his wish, have been therival of those of whom he was content to be the benefactor.For the verses which he occasionally composed, unstudiedas they are, exhibit the traces of a genius which, assiduouslycultivated, would have produced something great. In thesmall volume of his works may be found songs which havethe easy vigour of Suckling, and little satires which sparklewith wit as splendid as that of Butler. *

* Pepys’s Diary; Prior’s dedication of his poems lo the Duke of