faro. At this game the chances are much in favour of the banker, which may have been the reason why each of the King's mistresses kept a basset-table. The greatest gambler of those times would appear to have been Lady Castlemaine, who is stated to have lost £25,000 at basset in one night and to have been in the habit of staking from £1,000 to £1,500 at a cast.1 Courtin, the French ambassador, stated that at the Duchess of Portsmouth's there were usually three gaming-tables going at once; one for ombre, one for basset, and one for trente et quarante. Roscommon was a notorious gambler and duellist; but there appear to be no other records against his moral character, and with respect to his poems, Pope wrote that : in all Charles's days, Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays.2 Possibly John Milton, who also lived in Charles's days, might have objected to this assertion as too exclusive but doubtless Pope had good reason for passing a general censure upon the poetry of the reign of Charles II. If Roscommon was the purest poet of Charles's days, it was rather hard upon his memory that his poems should be subsequently published in one 1 Mrs. Jameson's Court Beauties. 2 Roscommon himself wrote, in his Essay on Translated Verse:- volume with those of the poet generally reputed to have been among the impurest of that period. The work in question is entitled The Miscellaneous Works of the Right Hon. The Earls of Rochester and Roscommon, and it was published in the year 1707. Many of Roscommon's verses were of a serious nature, and he made an English translation of the Dies Irae, two lines of which My God, my Father, and my Friend, Do not forsake me in my end, are said to have been the last words he ever uttered. His most famous poem is his Essay on Translated Verse. The following lines may be taken as a fair specimen of the work: On sure foundations let your fabric rise, Not by affected meretricious arts, But strict harmonious symmetry of parts; With vital heat to animate the mass: A pure, an active, an auspicious flame, And bright as Heaven, from whence the blessing came; The race of gods have reached that envied height. Toward vices other than gambling Roscommon was somewhat severe; but possibly it might be an injustice to his memory to suggest that he may have endeavoured to compound for the sin He was inclined to By damning those he had no mind to. as Johnson described his ideas and expressions as "elegant but not great"; his versification "smooth, but rarely vigorous"; and he thought that Roscommon might "be numbered among the benefactors to English literature ". Very different from Johnson's is Walpole's description of Roscommon: "One of the most renowned writers in the reign of Charles II. but one of the most careless too". And after praising two of his works, he adds "in the rest of his poems there are scarce above four lines that are as striking as these :— The Law appear'd with Maynard at their head, Roscommon is interesting as having been the only literary rake of the court of Charles II. who wrote religious poetry; and one would imagine that among such a set it would bring him into considerable ridicule; yet there is no evidence of this having been the case. Possibly his companions may have been of opinion that his duels and his heavy play atoned for what they would consider his idiosyncrasies, if not his iniquities, in this respect. The idea of a poet who wrote hymns by day, gambled by night and fought duels the next morning, is not particularly edifying but be this as it may, if we put on one side the faith without works exhibited at that time by the Duke of York, Roscommon was the only member of the whole party who showed the faintest traces of religious feeling. |