John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

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John Wilmot
Earl of Rochester
John Wilmot.jpg
Born (1647-04-01)1 April 1647
Ditchley, Oxfordshire, England
Died 26 July 1680(1680-07-26) (aged 33)
Woodstock, Oxfordshire
Cause of death likely syphilis[1]
Resting place Spelsbury, Oxfordshire
Nationality English
Alma mater Wadham College, University of Oxford
Occupation poet, courtier
Employer Charles II
Notable work(s) A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind
A Letter From Artemesia
An Allusion to Horace
A Ramble in St James' Park[2]
The Imperfect Enjoyment[3]
Influenced by Thomas Hobbes,[4] Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux,[5] Abraham Cowley,[4] Lucretius,[6] François de La Rochefoucauld,[3] Horace[7]
Influenced Alexander Pope,[8] Aphra Behn, George Etherege, Jonathan Swift,[9] Daniel Defoe,[10] Graham Greene[11]
Religion Atheist; supposed deathbed conversion to Christianity

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1 April 1647 – 26 July 1680), was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II's Restoration court. The Restoration reacted against the "spiritual authoritarianism" of the Puritan era.[3] Rochester was the embodiment of the new era, and he is as well known for his rakish lifestyle as his poetry, although the two were often interlinked.[3] In 1669 he committed treason by boxing the ears of Thomas Killigrew in sight of the monarch, and in 1673 he accidentally delivered an insulting diatribe to the King. A C Grayling wrote, "It is quite something to live in an age of riotous immorality, and yet to be accounted the most dissolute individual of the time."[12] Rochester supposedly underwent a deathbed conversion from his lifelong atheism, shortly before he died at the age of 33 from venereal disease.

Rochester's contemporary Andrew Marvell described him as "the best English satirist", and he is generally considered to be the most considerable poet and the most learned among the Restoration wits.[13] His poetry, much of it censored during the Victorian era, began a revival from the 1920s onwards, with notable champions including Graham Greene and Ezra Pound.[11] The critic Vivian de Sola Pinto linked Rochester's libertinism to Hobbesian materialism.[11] During his lifetime, he was best known for A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind, and it remains among his best known works today.

Contents

Life [edit]

John Wilmot was born at Ditchley House in Oxfordshire on the 1st April 1647. His father, Henry, Viscount Wilmot, was a hard-drinking Cavalier of Anglo-Irish stock, and would be created Earl of Rochester in 1652 for his military service to Charles II during the King's exile under the Commonwealth. Paul Davies describes Henry as "a Cavalier legend, a dashing bon viveur and war-hero who single-handedly engineered the future Charles II's escape to the Continent (including the famous concealment in an oak tree) after the disastrous battle of Worcester in 1651".[3] His mother, Anne St. John, was a strong willed Puritan from a noble Wiltshire family.[11] From the age of seven, Rochester was privately tutored, two years later attending the grammar school in nearby Burford.[14] His father died in 1658, and John Wilmot inherited the title of the Earl of Rochester in April of that year.[3]

In January 1660, Rochester was admitted as a Fellow commoner to Wadham College, Oxford, a new and comparatively poor college.[15] Whilst there, it is said, he "grew debauched". In September 1661 he was awarded an honorary M.A. by an old family friend, the newly-elected Chancellor of the university, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon.[4] As an act of gratitude towards the son of Henry Wilmot, Charles II conferred on Rochester an annual pension of £500. In November 1661 Charles sent him on a three year Grand Tour of France and Italy, accompanied by the physician and scholar Andrew Balfour. This exposed him to an unusual degree to European (especially French) writing and thought.[16] In 1664 Rochester returned to London, and made his formal début at the Restoration court on Christmas Day.[3]

It has been suggested by a number of scholars that the King took a paternal role in Rochester's life. Charles II suggested a marriage between Rochester and the wealthy heiress Elizabeth Malet. Her wealth-hungry relatives opposed marriage to the impoverished Rochester, who conspired with his mother to abduct the young Countess. Samuel Pepys described the attempted abduction in his diary on 28 May 1665:

Thence to my Lady Sandwich's, where, to my shame, I had not been a great while before. Here, upon my telling her a story of my Lord Rochester's running away on Friday night last with Mrs. Mallett, the great beauty and fortune of the North, who had supped at White Hall with Mrs. Stewart, and was going home to her lodgings with her grandfather, my Lord Haly, by coach; and was at Charing Cross seized on by both horse and foot men, and forcibly taken from him, and put into a coach with six horses, and two women provided to receive her, and carried away. Upon immediate pursuit, my Lord of Rochester (for whom the King had spoke to the lady often, but with no successe [sic]) was taken at Uxbridge; but the lady is not yet heard of, and the King mighty angry, and the Lord sent to the Tower.[17]

As punishment, Rochester was confined to the Tower for three weeks, and was only released after he wrote a penitent apology to the King.[3] Rochester attempted to redeem himself by volunteering for the navy in the Second Dutch War, serving under Thomas Teddeman. His courage at the Battle of Vågen made him a war hero. Pleased with his conduct, Charles made Rochester a Gentleman of the Bedchamber upon his return in 1666, which granted him prime lodgings in Whitehall and a pension of £1,000 a year.[18] The role encompassed, every week in four, Rochester helping the King to dress and undress, serve his meals when dining in private, and sleeping at the foot of the King's bed.[3]

Malet eloped with Rochester on January 1667, and they married at the Knightsbridge chapel.[19] In autumn of that year, Rochester's special favour with the monarch was cemented when he was given special license by the King to enter the House of Lords early, despite being underage.[3] He "almost certainly" took the actress Nell Gwyn as his lover; she was later to become the mistress of Charles II.[3] Gywn became a lifelong friend and political associate, and her relationship with the King gave Rochester influence and status within the Court.[3]

Rochester's life was divided between domesticity in the country and a riotous existence at court, where he was renowned for drunkenness, vivacious conversation, and "extravagant frolics" as part of the Merry Gang (as Andrew Marvell described them).[20] The Merry Gang flourished for about 15 years after 1665 and included Henry Jermyn; Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset; John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave; Henry Killigrew; Sir Charles Sedley; the playwrights William Wycherley and George Etherege; and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Gilbert Burnet wrote of him that, "For five years together he was continually Drunk … [and] not … perfectly Master of himself … [which] led him to … do many wild and unaccountable things."[4] Rochester was first banished from the court in 1669, although the King soon called for his return.[3]

In 1673, Rochester began to train Elizabeth Barry as an actress.[3] She went on to become the most famous actress of her age.[3] He took her as his mistress in 1675.[3] The relationship lasted for around five years, and produced a daughter, before descending into acrimony after Rochester began to resent her success.[3] Rochester wrote afterwards, "With what face can I incline/To damn you to be only mine? ... Live up to thy might mind/And be the mistress of mankind".

A portrait of the poet

When the King's advisor and friend of Rochester, George Villiers lost power in 1673, Rochester's standing fell as well.[3] At the Christmas festivities at Whitehall of that year, Rochester delivered a satire to Charles II, "In the Isle of Britain" – which criticized the King for being obsessed with sex at the expense of his kingdom.[3] Charles' reaction to this satirical portrayal resulted in Rochester's exile from the court until February.[3] During this time Rochester dwelt at his estate in Adderbury.[3] Despite this, in February 1674, after much petitioning by Rochester, the King appointed him Ranger of Woodstock Park.[3]

In June 1675 "Lord Rochester in a frolick after a rant did ... beat downe the dyill which stood in the middle of the Privie Garding, which was esteemed the rarest in Europ". John Aubrey learned what Rochester said on this occasion when he came in from his "revells" with Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, and Fleetwood Sheppard to see the object: "'What ... doest thou stand here to fuck time?' Dash they fell to worke".[4] It has been speculated that the comment refers not to the dial itself, which was not phallic in appearance, but a painting of the King next to the dial that featured his phallic sceptre.[21] Rochester fled the court again.[3]

Rochester fell into disfavour again in 1676. During a late-night scuffle with the night watch—a scuffle probably provoked by Rochester himself—one of Rochester's companions was killed by a pike-thrust. Rochester was reported to have fled the scene of the incident, and his standing with the monarch reached an all time low.[22] Following this incident, Rochester briefly went underground, impersonating a quack physician, "Doctor Bendo". Under this persona, he claimed skill in treating "barrenness" (infertility), and other gynecological disorders. Gilbert Burnet wryly noted that Rochester's practice was "not without success", implying his intercession of himself as surreptitious sperm donor.[23] On occasion, Rochester also assumed the role of the grave and matronly Mrs. Bendo, presumably so that he could inspect young women privately without arousing their husbands' suspicions.[24]

By the age of 33, Rochester was dying, from what is usually described as the effects of syphilis, gonorrhea or other venereal diseases, combined with the effects of alcoholism. Carol Richards has disputed this, arguing that it is more likely that he died of renal failure due to chronic nephritis as a result of suffering from Bright's disease.[25] His mother had him attended in his final weeks by her religious associates, particularly Gilbert Burnet, later Bishop of Salisbury. A deathbed renunciation of libertinism was published and promulgated as the conversion of a prodigal son. This reported renunciation became legendary, reappearing in numerous pious tracts over the next two centuries. Because the first published account of this story appears in Burnet's own writings, its accuracy has been disputed, with Burnet accused of having shaped the account of Rochester's denunciation of libertinism to enhance his own reputation.

In the early morning of 26 July 1680, Rochester died "without a shudder or a sound".[26] Rochester was later buried at Spelsbury Church in Spelsbury, Oxfordshire. After hearing of Burnet's departure from his side, he muttered his very last words; "Has my friend left me? then I shall die shortly"

Works [edit]

Rochester's manor in Adderbury

The three great critical editions of Rochester in the twentieth century have taken very different approaches to authenticating and organizing his canon. David Vieth’s 1968 edition adopts a heavily biographical organization, modernizing spellings and heading the sections of his book "Prentice Work", "Early Maturity", "Tragic Maturity", and "Disillusionment and Death". Keith Walker’s 1984 edition takes a genre-based approach, returning to the older spellings and accidentals in an effort to present documents closer to those a seventeenth century audience would have received. Harold Love’s Oxford University Press edition of 1999, now the scholarly standard, notes the variorum history conscientiously, but arranges works in genre sections ordered from the private to the public. Scholarship has identified approximately 75 authentic Rochester poems.[27]

Rochester's poetic work varies widely in form, genre, and content. He was part of a "mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease",[28] who continued to produce their poetry in manuscripts, rather than in publication. As a consequence, some of Rochester's work deals with topical concerns, such as satires of courtly affairs in libels, to parodies of the styles of his contemporaries, such as Sir Charles Scroope. He is also notable for his impromptus,[29] one of which is a teasing epitaph of King Charles II:

We have a pretty witty king,
And whose word no man relies on,
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one"[30]

to which Charles supposedly said "that's true, for my words are my own, but my actions are those of my ministers".[31]

Rochester's poetry displays a range of learning and influences. These included imitations of Malherbe, Ronsard, and Boileau. He also translated or adapted from classical authors such as Petronius, Lucretius, Ovid, Anacreon, Horace, and Seneca.

Rochester's writings were at once admired and infamous. A Satyr Against Mankind (1675), one of the few poems he published (in a broadside in 1679) is a scathing denunciation of rationalism and optimism that contrasts human perfidy with animal wisdom.

The majority of his poetry was not published under his name until after his death. Because most of his poems circulated only in manuscript form during his lifetime, it is likely that much of his writing does not survive. Burnet claimed that Rochester's conversion experience led him to ask that "all his profane and lewd writings" be burned;[citation needed] it is unclear how much, if any, of Rochester's writing was destroyed.

Rochester was also interested in the theatre. In addition to an interest in actresses, he wrote an adaptation of Fletcher's Valentinian (1685), a scene for Sir Robert Howard's The Conquest of China, a prologue to Elkanah Settle's The Empress of Morocco (1673), and epilogues to Sir Francis Fane's Love in the Dark (1675), Charles Davenant's Circe, a Tragedy (1677). The best-known dramatic work attributed to Rochester, Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery, has never been successfully proven to be written by him. Posthumous printings of Sodom, however, gave rise to prosecutions for obscenity, and were destroyed. On 16 December 2004 one of the few surviving copies of Sodom was sold by Sotheby's for £45,600.[32]

Rochester's letters to his wife and to his friend Henry Savile are among the best of the period and show an admirable mastery of easy, colloquial prose.

Portrait of John Wilmot by Sir Peter Lely, Dillington House

Reception and influence [edit]

Rochester was the model for a number of rake heroes in plays of the period, such as Don John in Thomas Shadwell's The Libertine (1675) and Dorimant in George Etherege's The Man of Mode (1676).[3] Meanwhile he was eulogised by his contemporaries such as Aphra Behn and Andrew Marvell, who described him as "the only man in England that had the true vein of satire".[33] Daniel Defoe quoted him in Moll Flanders, and discussed him in other works.[34] Voltaire, who spoke of Rochester as "the man of genius, the great poet", admired his satire for its "energy and fire" and translated some lines into French to "display the shining imagination his lordship only could boast".[35]

By the 1750s, Rochester's reputation suffered as the liberality of the Restoration era subsided; Samuel Johnson characterised him as a worthless and dissolute rake.[36] Horace Walpole described him as "a man whom the muses were fond to inspire but ashamed to avow".[37] Despite this general disdain for Rochester, William Hazlitt commented that his "verses cut and sparkle like diamonds"[38] while his "epigrams were the bitterest, the least laboured, and the truest, that ever were written".[39] Referring to Rochester's perspective, Hazlitt wrote that "his contempt for everything that others respect almost amounts to sublimity".[39] Meanwhile, Goethe quoted A Satyr against Reason and Mankind in English in his Autobiography.[40] Despite this, Rochester's work was largely ignored throughout the Victorian era.

Rochester's reputation would not begin to revive until the 1920s. Ezra Pound, in his ABC of Reading, compared Rochester's poetry favourably to better known figures such as Alexander Pope and John Milton.[41] Graham Greene characterised Rochester as a "spoiled Puritan".[42] Although F. R. Leavis argued that "Rochester is not a great poet of any kind", William Empson admired him. More recently, Germaine Greer has questioned the validity of the appraisal of Rochester as a drunken rake, and hailed the sensitivity of some of his lyrics.[43]

A play, The Libertine (1994), was written by Stephen Jeffreys, and staged by the Royal Court Theatre. The 2004 film The Libertine, based on Jeffreys' play, starred Johnny Depp as Rochester, Samantha Morton as Elizabeth Barry, John Malkovich as King Charles II and Rosamund Pike as Elizabeth Malet. Michael Nyman set to music an excerpt of Rochester's poem, "Signor Dildo" for the film.[44]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Christopher Hill reviews ‘The Letters of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester’ edited by Jeremy Treglown · LRB 20 November 1980
  2. ^ John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (19 January 2013). Selected Poems. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-164580-8. Retrieved 18 April 2013. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Paul Davies, ed. (19 January 2013). Selected Poems: John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-164580-8. Retrieved 18 April 2013. 
  4. ^ a b c d e Frank H. Ellis, ‘Wilmot, John, second earl of Rochester (1647–1680)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 12 July 2012
  5. ^ Samuel Johnson; William Hazlitt (1854). Lives of the British poets. Nathaniel Cooke. p. 244. Retrieved 12 July 2012. 
  6. ^ James William Johnson (2004). A Profane Wit: The Life Of John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester. University Rochester Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-58046-170-2. Retrieved 20 July 2012. 
  7. ^ The "Allusion to Horace": Rochester's Imitative Mode Howard D. Weinbrot Studies in Philology , Vol. 69, No. 3 (Jul., 1972), pp. 348-368 Published by: University of North Carolina Press Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4173771
  8. ^ Ferraro, Julian (15 December 2000). "10". In Nicholas Fisher. That Second Bottle: Essays on the Earl of Rochester. Manchester University Press. p. 119. ISBN 978-0-7190-5683-3. Retrieved 3 April 2013. 
  9. ^ David Farley-Hills (5 March 1996). Earl of Rochester: The Critical Heritage. Psychology Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-415-13429-3. Retrieved 21 July 2012. 
  10. ^ Rochester and Defoe: A Study in Influence John McVeagh Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 , Vol. 14, No. 3, Restoration and Eighteenth Century (Summer, 1974), pp. 327-341
  11. ^ a b c d A Martyr to Sin
  12. ^ Grayling, A C (6 November 2005). "The Filth and the Fury". Independent on Sunday. Retrieved 2 April 2013. 
  13. ^ http://cerisia.cerosia.org/articles/251/Longman%20Anthology%20Instructors%20Manual/Restoration/76-JohnWilmot_IM.pdf
  14. ^ James William Johnson (2004). A Profane Wit: The Life Of John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester. University Rochester Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-58046-170-2. Retrieved 20 July 2012. 
  15. ^ James William Johnson (2004). A Profane Wit: The Life Of John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester. University Rochester Press. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-58046-170-2. Retrieved 20 July 2012. 
  16. ^ Treglown, Jeremy. "Rochester and the second bottle." Times Literary Supplement [London, England] 10 Sept. 1993: 5. Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive. Web. 11 Dec. 2012.
  17. ^
  18. ^ Frank H. Ellis, ‘Wilmot, John, second earl of Rochester (1647–1680)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 4 April 2013
  19. ^ Notes and Queries (2011) 58 (3): 381-386. doi: 10.1093/notesj/gjr109
  20. ^ Google books Charles Beauclerk, Nell Gwyn: Mistress to a King (New York: Grove, 2005), 272. Accessed May 15, 2007
  21. ^ Wilmot, John (2002). The Debt to Pleasure. New York: Routledge. p. 14. ISBN 0-415-94084-2. 
  22. ^ Johnson, Profane Wit, 250-53
  23. ^ Timbs, John. Doctors and patients, or, Anecdotes of the Medical World and Curiosities of Medicine. London: Richard Bentley and Son (1876), p.151.
  24. ^ Alcock, Thomas. "Epistle Dedicatory" to Lord Rochester, The Famous Pathologist or The Noble Mountebank. Ed. and introd. Vivian de Sola Pinto. Nottingham: Sisson and Parker Ltd. (1961), pp. 35-38
  25. ^ Richards, Carol (2011). Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness:the Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. 
  26. ^ Johnson, Profane Wit, 327-43
  27. ^ Joseph Laurence Black (30 March 2006). The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, Volume 3. Broadview Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-1-55111-611-2. Retrieved 12 July 2012. 
  28. ^ Alexander Pope, "First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace", line 108.
  29. ^ Rochester composed at least 10 versions of Impromptus on Charles II luminarium.org
  30. ^ Papers of Thomas Hearne (17 November 1706) quoted in Doble, C. E. (editor) (1885) Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne Volume 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press for the Oxford Historical Society, p. 308
  31. ^ A thorough discourse concerning this epigram and the king's response can be found from the 19th to 21st paragraph of the Forward of the "The Tryal of William Penn and William Mead" [1][dead link]
  32. ^ "IN BRIEF: Trump picks new 'Apprentice'; Bawdy 17th century play auctioned". CBC News. December 17, 2004. [dead link]
  33. ^ The Project Gutenberg eBook of Andrew Marvell, by Augustine Birrell
  34. ^
  35. ^ Great Books Online, François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694–1778). "Letter XXI—On the Earl of Rochester and Mr. Waller" Letters on the English. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14, Bartleby.com, Accessed May 15, 2007
  36. ^ David Farley-Hills (5 March 1996). Earl of Rochester: The Critical Heritage. Psychology Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-415-13429-3. Retrieved 21 July 2012. 
  37. ^ Horace Walpole, A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, 1758.
  38. ^ William Hazlitt, Select British Poets (1824)
  39. ^ a b William Hazlitt,
  40. ^
  41. ^ Pound, Ezra. ABC of Reading (1934) New Directions (reprint). ISBN 0-8112-1893-7
  42. ^ Lord Rochester's Monkey: Being the Life of John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester by Graham Greene Review by: G. S. Avery The Modern Language Review , Vol. 70, No. 4 (Oct., 1975), pp. 857-858
  43. ^ Germaine Greer reviews ‘The Works of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester’ edited by Harold Love · LRB 16 September 1999
  44. ^ "Signior Dildo by Lord John Wilmot - All Poetry". Oldpoetry.com. Retrieved 2011-06-12. 
  • Johnson, James William (2004). A Profane Wit: The Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Rochester, NY.: University of Rochester Press. ISBN 1-58046-170-0. 

Further reading [edit]

  • Some Account of the Life and Death of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester by Gilbert Burnet (Munroe and Francis, 1812)
  • Greene, Graham (1974). Lord Rochester's Monkey, being the Life of John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester. New York: The Bodley Head. ASIN B000J30NL4. 
  • Lamb, Jeremy (New edition, 2005). So Idle a Rogue: The Life and Death of Lord Rochester. Sutton. pp. 288 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3913-3. 
  • Wilmot, John (1999). The Works of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Ed. Harold Love. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-818367-4. 
  • Wilmot, John; David M. Vieth, ed. (New edition, 2002). The Complete Poems of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. pp. 256 pages. ISBN 0-300-09713-1. 
  • Wilmot, John (2002). The Debt to Pleasure. New York: Routledge. pp. 140 pages. ISBN 0-415-94084-2. 
  • Combe, Kirk (1998). A Martyr for Sin: Rochester's Critique of Polity, Sexuality, and Society. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press. p. 186. ISBN 0-87413-647-4. 

External links [edit]

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Henry Wilmot		 Earl of Rochester
1658–1680		 Succeeded by
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