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James the second, he was made president of the council, and one of the commissioners for ecclesiastical affairs; in prosecuting which office, according to Burnet, he made a step to popery, without any previous instruction; so that the change looked too like a

"Of all the vermin that did e'er debase

The statesman's trade, or kingly rule disgrace,
That insect SUNDERLAND is sure the worst,
With which the nation ever yet was curst;
A creeping, fawning parcel of a chit;
No whole thing, but a knave; no other wit
Than an unmanly, senceless, scornful scream,
Would make a man of sence almost blaspheme,
And swear it would mankind much less reproach,
To make a minister of Mrs. Roach."

Dryden, in his ballad-lines on young statesmen, has the following slur:

"Clarendon had law and sense,

Clifford was fierce and brave,
Bennet's grave look was a pretence,
And Danby's matchless impudence
Help'd to support the knave:
But SUNDERLAND, Godolphin, Lory,
These will appear such chits in story,
'T will turn all politics to jests;

To be repeated like John Dory,

When fidlers sing at feasts."

And he is represented, under the title of Cethego, in Faction Display'd, as

"A Proteus, ever acting in disguise,

A finish'd statesman, intricately wise,
A second Machiavel, who soar'd above
The little tyes of gratitude and love."

man, who having no religion, took up one rather to serve a turn, than that he was truly a convert from one religion to another. He has been charged also with advising the king to every unpopular measure he took, and betraying him at the same time to the prince of Orange. In 1688 he was removed from office, dismissed from the king's councils, and finding his situation perilous, withdrew to Holland, where he wrote the letter which has entitled him to admission in the present work. He afterwards found much favour with king William, was made lord chamberlain of the household; and, as Burnet writes, had gained such an ascendant over the king, that he brought him to agree to some things, which few expected he would have yielded to: but falling into some discredit at court for his supposed opposition to a standing army, he resigned the chamberlainship in 1697, and retired to his seat at Althorpe during the remainder of his life, which terminated on September 28. 1702.

Several of his lordship's diplomatic letters were printed with the earl of Danby's in 1710, but, like those of his correspondent, are little calculated to supply any literary contribution.

It is the remark of sir E. Brydges, that Sunderland makes too conspicuous a figure in history, and not much to his credit. When we consider him as the son of the virtuous young earl who fell at the battle of Newbury, and of the accomplished and celebrated Sacharissa, it is not easy to suppress our wonder at this degeneracy.]

9 Hist. vol. ii. p. 483.

JOHN,

SECOND LORD JEFFREYS,

SON of the noted chancellor. I find two little pieces ascribed to this lord in the Collection of State Poems, in four vols. 4to.: one is called,

"A Fable."2

The other 3,

"A burlesque Translation of an Elegy on the Duke of Gloucester."

[This lord Jeffreys succeeded to his title on the death of his father1, in 1689; married Charlotte, the daugh

2 Vol. ii. p. 241,

3 Vol.iii. p.542.

• Dunton, the bibliopolic projector, informs us, that he sold above six thousand copies of a book called the Bloody Assizes, in which the chancellor Jeffreys was made a very cruel man; and he therefore formed a new project, wholly to change the same, and turn the Bloody Assizes into a Merciful Assizes, or A Panegyric on the late Lord Jeffreys, for hanging so many in the West." See Dunton's Life and Errors, p. 277. Titus Oates, in an address to king James, speaks of " that villain Jeffreys, a rogue that had a noble character given of him by his brother (Charles II.) viz. that he had neither law, nor sense, nor manners; yet he served him for a lord-chief-justice, and James II. for a chancellor."

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JOHN

LORD JEFFERIES

Prom a Drawing in the collection of Thomas Thompson Esq. MP

Bob May 2018 of by T Scott 442 Strand.

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