Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, born about 1633, nephew and godson to the Earl of Stratford. He was at the Protestant College at Caen when, by the death of his father, he became Earl of Roscommon, at the age of ten. He remained abroad, travelled in Italy till the Restoration, when he came in with the king, became captain of the band of Pensioners, took for a time to gambling, married, indulged his taste in literature, strongly under the French influence, and had a project for an English academy like that of France. He translated into verse Horace’s “Art of Poetry,” translated into verse Virgil’s sixth Eclogue, one or two Odes of Horace, and a passage from Guarini’s “Pastor Fido.” Of his original writing the most important piece is “An Essay on Translated Verse,” carefully polished in the manner of Boileau, sensible, and often very happy in expression. He died in 1684.
General
It was my Lord Roscommon’s “Essay on Translated Verse:” which made me uneasy till I tried whether or no I was capable of following his rules, and of reducing the speculation into practice.
| Nor must Roscommon pass neglected by, | |
| That makes even rules a noble poetry; | |
| Rules whose deep sense and heavenly numbers show | |
| The best of critics, and of poets too. |
| In all Charles’ days | |
| Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays. |
We must allow of Roscommon, what Fenton has not mentioned so distinctly as he ought, and what is yet very much to his honour, that he is perhaps the only correct writer in verse before Addison; and that, if there are not so many or so great beauties in his compositions as in those of some contemporaries, there are at least fewer faults…. Of Roscommon’s works, the judgement of the publick seems to be right. He is elegant, but not great; he never labours after exquisite beauties, and he seldom falls into gross faults. His versification is smooth, but rarely vigorous; and his rhymes are remarkably exact. He improved taste, if he did not enlarge knowledge, and may be numbered among the benefactors to English literature.
| Roscommon fills with elegant remark | |
| His verse as elegant; unspotted lines | |
| Flow from a mind unspotted as themselves. |
Roscommon, one of the best for harmony and correctness of language, has little vigor, but he never offends; and Pope has justly praised his “unspotted bays.”
“Dies Iræ,” one of the best of this poet’s few works; for much greater credit is due to Roscommon for his endeavours to purify our language, than for his poems taken individually. Severe in judgment, he shone chiefly in the didactic style. He was considered as the most correct writer in verse before Addison’s time; but the almost total indifference of our own and of recently past times, both to Addison’s poems and to those of Lord Roscommon, proves that correctness is one of the merits least appreciated by lovers of poetry. He had, however, a far higher merit; his verses were free from the licentiousness of his times.
Roscommon stands on the same ground with Denham—elegant and sensible, but cold and unimpassioned.
Roscommon is remarkable as the only writer between Milton and the end of the century who discarded rhyme in serious nondramatic verse.
He has nothing of the salt and savour of Rochester’s more serious poetry, and is at best an elegant versifier, who, in his only considerable original poem, the “Essay on Translated Verse,” thinks justly, reasons clearly, and expresses himself with considerable spirit when the subject requires. The most original feature of his literary character is his preference in a rhyming age for blank verse, which he enforces in theory, but is far from recommending by his practice. In his rhymed pieces he is a better versifier than poet, and in his blank verse the contrary.
