John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire (1648–1721), succeeded his father as third Earl of Mulgrave in 1658, served in both navy and army, and was Lord Chamberlain to James II., and a Cabinet-councillor under William III., who in 1694 made him Marquis of Normandy. Anne made him Duke of Buckinghamshire (1703); but for his opposition to Godolphin and Marlborough he was deprived of the Seal (1705). After 1710, under the Tories, he was Lord Steward and Lord President till the death of Anne, when he lost all power, and intrigued for the restoration of the Stuarts. He wrote two tragedies, a metrical “Essay on Satire,” an “Essay on Poetry,” &c.

Personal

  He had a piercing wit, a quick apprehension, an unerring judgment; that he understood critically the delicacies of poetry, and was as great a judge as a patron of learning.

  “The nobleman-look.”—Yes, I know what you mean very well: that look which a noble man should have; rather than what they have generally now…. The Duke of Buckingham (Sheffield) was a genteel man; and had a great deal the look you speak of.

  The life of this peer takes up fourteen pages and a half in folio in the General Dictionary, where it has little pretensions to occupy a couple. But his pious relict was always purchasing places for him, herself and their son, in every suburb of the temple of fame,—a tenure, against which, of all others, quo-warrantos are sure to take place.

  His character is not to be proposed as worthy of imitation. His religion he may be supposed to have learned from Hobbes; and his morality was such as naturally proceeds from loose opinions. His sentiments with respect to women he picked up in the court of Charles; and his principles concerning property were such as a gaming-table supplies. He was censured as covetous, and has been defended by an instance of inattention to his affairs, as if a man might not at once be corrupted by avarice and idleness. He is said, however, to have had much tenderness, and to have been very ready to apologise for his violences of passion.

  As far as posterity has the means of judging, we can only come to the conclusion, that he was characterized by many vices, and, apparently, by scarcely a single virtue. The best that can be said of him is, that he was a brave man, and an agreeable companion. His laugh is described as having been the pleasantest in the world; and though his temper was passionate, his disposition is said to have been a forgiving one.

  He was, by the acknowledgment of those who neither loved nor esteemed him, a man distinguished by fine parts, and in parliamentary eloquence inferior to scarcely any orator of his time. His moral character was entitled to no respect. He was a libertine without that openness of heart and hand which sometimes makes libertinism amiable, and a haughty aristocrat without that elevation of sentiment which sometimes makes aristocratical haughtiness respectable. The satirists of the age nicknamed him Lord Allpride, and pronounced it strange that a man who had so exalted a sense of his dignity should be so hard and niggardly in all pecuniary dealings. He had given deep offence to the royal family by venturing to entertain the hope that he might win the heart and hand of the Princess Anne. Disappointed in this attempt, he had exerted himself to gain by meanness the favour which he had forfeited by presumption. His epitaph, written by himself, still informs all who pass through Westminster Abbey that he lived and died a sceptic in religion; and we learn from his memoirs, written by himself, that one of his favourite subjects of mirth was the Romish superstition. Yet he began, as soon as James was on the throne, to express a strong inclination towards Popery, and at length in private affected to be a convert.

Essay on Satire

  I cannot think that any part of the “Essay on Satire” received additions from his [Dryden’s] pen. Probably he might contribute a few hints for revision; but the author of “Absalom and Achitophel” could never completely disguise the powers which were shortly to produce that brilliant satire. Dryden’s verses must have shone among Mulgrave’s as gold beside copper. The whole Essay is a mere stagnant level, no one part of it so far rising above the rest as to bespeak the work of a superior hand. The thoughts even when conceived with some spirit, are clumsily and unhappily brought out,—a fault never to be traced in the beautiful language of Dryden, whose powers of expression were at least equal to his force of conception.

  Mulgrave affects ease and spirit; but his “Essay on Satire” belies the supposition that Dryden had any share in it.

Essay on Poetry, 1682

  This work by the Duke of Buckingham, is enrolled among our great English productions. The precepts are sensible, the poetry not indifferent, but it has been praised more than it deserves.

  His “Essay on Poetry,” to which Pope has given an undeserved immortality, is a short and tolerably meagre performance, in which a variety of disjointed rules are applied to the principal species of poetic composition. It contains however some vigorous lines and some sensible observations of individual criticism.

  Mulgrave’s “Essay on Poetry” contains some terse and effective lines, one or two of which have passed into current use. He lays down sensible rules for practitioners in the various departments of poetic art, but he was not very successful himself in the composition of odes, tragedies, and epistles.

  As a poet his reputation rests entirely upon his “Essay on Poetry,” which contains many just thoughts expressed in pleasing numbers, although the author’s deference to the conventional dicta of criticism leads him into idolatry, not only of Homer and Virgil, but of Bassu.

General

  The Duke of Buckingham was superficial in everything; even in poetry, which was his fort.

  I can recollect no performance of Buckingham that stamps him a true genius; his reputation was owing to his rank.

  It is certain that his grace’s compositions in prose have nothing extraordinary in them; his poetry is most indifferent, and the greatest part of both is already fallen into total neglect. It is said that he wrote in hopes of being confounded with his predecessor in the title; but he would more easily have been mistaken with the other Buckingham, if he had never written at all.

  He is introduced into this collection only as a poet; and, if we credit the testimony of his contemporaries, he was a poet of no vulgar rank. But favour and flattery are now at an end; criticism is no longer softened by his bounties, or awed by his splendour, and, being able to take a more steady view, discovers him to be a writer that sometimes glimmers, but rarely shines, feebly laborious, and at best but pretty. His songs are upon common topicks; he hopes, and grieves, and repents, and despairs, and rejoices, like any other maker of little stanzas; to be great, he hardly tries; to be gay, is hardly in his power…. His verses are often insipid; but his memories are lively and agreeable; he had the perspicuity and elegance of an historian, but not the fire and fancy of a poet.

  Mulgrave wrote verses which scarcely ever rose above absolute mediocrity; but as he was a man of high note in the political and fashionable world, these verses found admirers. Time dissolved the charm, but, unfortunately for him, not until his lines had acquired a prescriptive right to a place in all collections of the works of English poets. To this day accordingly his insipid essays in rhyme and his paltry songs to Amoretta and Gloriana are reprinted in company with “Comus” and “Alexander’s Feast.” The consequence is that our generation knows Mulgrave chiefly as a poetaster, and despises him as such.

  The Duke of Buckinghamshire’s two plays of “Caesar” and “Brutus,” a feeble execution of a not incorrect idea.

  Several of Sheffield’s prose works are valuable historically, particularly his “Account of the Revolution;” but his statements have to be received with caution when he is personally concerned.

  Wrote couplets inferior to Roscommon’s, and lyrics very inferior to Rochester’s, yet some of these latter are not despicable. An “Essay on Satire,” which is attributed to the joint efforts of Mulgrave and Dryden, is too rude, as well as mostly too rough, for the poet, and too clever for the peer; it contains perhaps the best satiric couplet in the English language, outside of Dryden and Pope—