Son of the rector of Woolbeding,
pupil at Winchester School, and commoner of Christchurch,
Cambridge, he had on his arrival in town vainly sought employment
as an actor, and barely earned bread as a play-writer. Before he
became a PROTEGE of my Lord Rochester he had written
"Alcibiades," a tragedy, he being then, in 1665, in his twenty-
fifth year. His next play was "Don Carlos, Prince of Spain,"
which, through the earl's influence, gained great success. In
the preface to this tragedy he acknowledges his unspeakable
obligations to my lord, who he says made it his business to
establish "Don Carlos" in the good opinion of the king and of his
royal highness the Duke of York. Unwarned by the fate of his
predecessors, and heedless of the fickleness of his patron, he
basked in hope in the present, mercifully unconscious of the
cruel death by starvation which awaited him in the future. Alas!
Rochester not only forsook him, but loaded him with satire in a
poem entitled "Session of the Poets."
In verses which he wrote soon after, entitled "An Allusion to the
Tenth Satire," Rochester likewise attacked Dryden; who, in the
preface of his "All for Love," replied in like manner. Then
there appeared an "Essay on Satire," which ridiculed the king,
dealt severely with his mistresses, said uncivil things of the
courtiers in general, and of my Lord Rochester in particular.
The noble earl was indeed described as being "lewd in every
limb," affected in his wit, mean in his actions, and cowardly in
his disposition.
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