cowardly, and cruel: But of this we
shall give a fuller account in the life of Mr. Dryden.

Mr. Wolsely, in his preface to Valentinian, a tragedy, altered by lord
Rochester from Fletcher, has given a character of his lordship and his
writings, by no means consistent with that idea, which other writers,
and common tradition, dispose us to form of him.

'He was a wonderful man, says he, whether we consider the constant
good sense, and agreeable mirth of his ordinary conversation, or the
vast reach and compass of his inventions, and the amazing depth of his
retired thoughts; the uncommon graces of his fashion, or the
inimitable turns of his wit, the becoming gentleness, the bewitching
softness of his civility, or the force and fitness of his satire; for
as he was both the delight, the love, and the dotage of the women, so
was he a continued curb to impertinence, and the public censure of
folly; never did man stay in his company unentertained, or leave it
uninstructed; never was his understanding biassed, or his pleasantness
forced; never did he laugh in the wrong place, or prostitute his sense
to serve his luxury; never did he stab into the wounds of fallen
virtue, with a base and a cowardly insult, or smooth the face of
prosperous villany, with the paint and washes of a mercenary wit;
never did he spare a sop for being rich, or flatter a knave for being
great. He had a wit that was accompanied with an unaffected greatness
of mind, and a natural love to justice and truth; a wit that was in
perpetual war with knavery, and ever attacking those kind of vices
most, whose malignity was like to be the most dissusive, such as
tended more immediately to the prejudice of public bodies; and were a
common nusance to the happiness of human kind. Never was his pen drawn
but on the side of good sense, and usually employed like the arms of
the ancient heroes, to stop the progress of arbitrary oppression, and
beat down the brutishness of headstrong will: to do his King and
country justice, upon such public state thieves as would beggar a
kingdom to enrich themselves: these were the vermin whom to his
eternal honour his pen was continually pricking and goading; a pen, if
not so happy in the success, yet as generous in the aim, as either the
sword of Theseus, or the club of Hercules; nor was it less sharp than
that, or less weighty than this. If he did not take so much care of
himself as he ought, he had the humanity however, to wish well