ishing an intrigue. He mentions,
however, one Monsieur Hoffman, who married a French lady, with whom he
was very great, and after the calamitous accident of Mr. Hoffman's being
drowned, he pleasantly describes the grief of the widow, and the methods
he took of removing her sorrow, by an attempt in which he succeeded.
These two letters discover the true character of Etherege, as well as
of the noble person to whom they were sent, and mark them as great
libertines, in speculation as in practice.
As for the other compositions of our author, they consist chiefly of
little airy sonnets, smart lampoons, and smooth panegyrics. All that we
have met with more than is here mentioned, of his writing in prose, is
a short piece, entitled An Account of the Rejoicing at the Diet of
Ratisbon, performed by Sir George Etherege, Knight, residing there from
his Majesty of Great Britain, upon Occasion of the Birth of the Prince
of Wales; in a Letter from himself, printed in the Savoy 1688. When our
author died, the writers of his life have been very deficient; Gildon
says, that after the Revolution, he followed his master into France, and
died there, or very soon after his arrival in England from thence. But
there was a report (say the authors of the Biograph. Brit. which they
received from an ingenious gentleman) 'that Sir George came to an
untimely death, by an unlucky accident at Ratisbon, for, after having
treated some company with a liberal entertainment at his house there,
when he had taken his glass too freely, and, being through his great
complaisance too forward, in waiting on his guests at their departure,
flushed as he was, he tumbled down stairs, and broke his neck, and so
fell a martyr to jollity and civility.'
One of the earliest of our author's lesser poems, is that addressed to
her Grace the Marchioness of Newcastle, after reading her poems, and as
it is esteemed a very elegant panegyric, we shall give the conclusion of
it as a specimen.
While we, your praise, endeavouring to rehearse,
Pay that great duty in our humble verse;
Such as may justly move your anger, now,
Like Heaven forgive them, and accept them too.
But what we cannot, your brave hero pays,
He builds those monuments we strive to raise;
Such as to after ages shall make known,
While he records your deathless fame his own:
So when an artist some rare beauty draws,
Both in our wonder there, and our applause.
His skill, from time secure
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