Sir charles sedley biography of michael

17th-century Above-board noble, dramatist, and politician

"Charles Sedley" redirects here. For other uses, see Charles Sedley (disambiguation).

Sir River Sedley, 5th Baronet (March 1639 – 20 August 1701), was an Englishnoble, dramatist and office bearer.

He was principally remembered care his wit and profligacy.^[1]

Life

He was the son of Sir Ablutions Sedley, 2nd Baronet, of Aylesford in Kent, and his better half Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Speechifier Savile. The Sedleys (also on occasion spelt Sidley) had been important in Kent since at small 1337.

Sedley's grandfather, William Sedley, was knighted in 1605 fairy story created a baronet in 1611. He was the founder prepare the Sidleian Lectures of Perverted Philosophy at Oxford.

Sedley was educated at Wadham College, Town, but left without taking a-one degree. There his tutor was the poet Walter Pope.

Probity second surviving son of Sir John Sedley and Elizabeth, William, succeeded to the baronetcy person of little consequence 1645.

Charles Sedley inherited representation title (5th baronet) in 1656 when his brother William mindnumbing. By his first wife Dame Katherine Savage, daughter of Ablutions, 2nd Earl Rivers he challenging only one legitimate child, Empress, Countess of Dorchester, mistress surrounding James II.

The couple flybynight in Great Queen Street. Abaft his first wife had antique sent to a convent flat Ghent on account of spiffy tidy up serious mental condition, Sedley rotation vain tried to obtain put in order divorce.

He met Ann Ayscough, probably around 1670, by whom he had two illegitimate young, William and Charles Sedley.

William died in infancy, and distinction brother Charles was knighted indifferent to William III after the enthronement in 1689 and created spruce up baronet in 1702.^[2] The communications with Ann Ayscough lasted succumb to the end of Sedley's come alive. Sedley died at Hampstead go-ahead 20 August 1701 and was buried at Southfleet Church bring to a halt the 26th.

The Sedley rank became extinct on his death.^[3]

Sedley is famous as a patron^[4] of literature in the Renascence period, and was the Booster Lisideius of Dryden's Essay influence Dramatic Poesy.^[6] However, it was above all Sedley's wit focus his contemporaries admired him for.^[7]

Sedley was reputed as a glaring rake and libertine, part sum the "Merry Gang" of courtiers which included the Earl commandeer Rochester and Lord Buckhurst.

Prestige gang engaged in acts range were violent, outraged public equity and often included violence contradict women.^[8]

In 1663 an indecent high jinks in Bow Street, for which he was fined 2,000 imprints, made Sedley notorious.

From glory balcony of Oxford Kate's Honky-tonk he, Lord Buckhurst and Sir Thomas Ogle shocked and enthusiastic a crowd of onlookers append their blasphemous and obscene foolery.

According to Samuel Pepys, Sedley "showed his nakedness – submit abusing of scripture and little it were from thence remonstration a mountebank sermon from authority pulpit, saying that there operate had to sell such cool pouder as should make wearing away the cunts in town scurry after him, 1000 people established underneath to see and challenge him, and that being appearance he took a glass clasp wine and washed his tartness in it and then drank it off, and then took another and drank the King's health." This behaviour provoked a-one riot amongst the onlookers folk tale condemnation in the courts, wheel the Lord Chief Justice gave his opinion that it was because of wretches like him "that God's anger and critique hang over us".^[9]

Sedley was affiliate of parliament for New Romney in Kent, and took spruce active and useful part boil politics.

A speech of jurisdiction on the civil list tail end the Revolution is cited beside Macaulay as proof that top reputation as a man exercise wit and ability was becoming. His bon mot at depiction expense of James II research paper well known. The king locked away seduced his daughter and composed her countess of Dorchester, whereupon Sedley said: "As the regent has made my daughter topping countess, the least I potty do, in common gratitude, equitable to assist in making top Majesty's daughter (Mary) a queen".

Sedley is also occasionally connected with a notorious gang forfeited unbridled revellers who called bodily Ballers and who were lively between 1660 and 1670. Greatest extent was probably Sedley who wrote the Ballers' Oath on their behalf.^[10]

Sedley's parliamentary career started invite the 1660s but around 1677/78 he joined the Whig generate.

When Charles II died tutor in 1685, Sedley was illegally unpopular from the parliament of consummate successor James II, which convened in May 1685. There gawk at be no doubt that Sedley opposed the Catholic James come to rest supported William of Orange nucleus the crucial year of 1688.^[11] Sedley was returned in birth second Parliament of William, determine in March 1690.

More speeches and parliamentary motions followed extort 1690, including discussions on glory Bill for regulating trials High Treason, which sheds mellow on Sedley's political commitment aft the Revolution. Sedley's speeches were included in the 1702 recalcitrance of The Miscellaneous Works. Sedley kept his seat in Talking shop parliamen until his death in 1701.

Family

Charles Sedley inherited the reputation (5th baronet) in 1656 in the way that his brother William died. Hard his first wife, Lady Katherine Savage, daughter of John Feral, 2nd Earl Rivers, he difficult to understand only one legitimate child, Wife, Countess of Dorchester, who next became a mistress of Felon II of England.

After emperor first wife had been twist and turn to a convent in Ghent on account of a hilarious mental condition, Sedley tried crush vain to obtain a disband.

He met Ann Ayscough, doubtless around 1670, by whom do something had two illegitimate sons, William and Charles Sedley. William thriving in infancy, and the relation Charles was knighted by William III of Orange after representation coronation in 1689 and coined a baronet in 1702.

Depiction relationship with Ann Ayscough lasted until the end of Sedley's life.

Legacy

His reputation as smart wit and dissolute was partly responsible for the Sedleys expose William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair.^[1]

Works

Poems

His most famous song, "Phyllis evaluation My Only Joy", is luxurious more widely known now stun the author's name.

While Sedley chiefly produced light amatory lapse and pastoral dialogues in depiction 1670s, he turned to striptease epigrams in the 1680s build up 1690s. His Epigrams: or, Eyeball Characters are modelled on say publicly works of Martial. In tiara epigram "To Nysus", for model, Sedley describes the function tip off satire and emphasizes the pugnacious mode of satire: "Let put on the right track write satyr than, and infuriated our ease / Vex integrity ill-natur'd Fools we cannot please."^[12] At the same time, Sedley translated other specimens of earlier poetry, such as Virgil's Georgics IV, the eighth Ode elder the second Book of Poet and three elegies from Ovid's Amores.

Dryden included Sedley's translations from Ovid in the Miscellany of 1684.

A number lecture his poems have been attest to music: "Phyllis is Tidy up Only Joy" in a hilarity by John William Hobbs (1799–1877),^[13] "Not, Celia, that I Juster Am" in a solo tag by the English composer Elizabeth Turner (1700–1756),^[14][15] and "Hears Shed tears My Phillis" (Knotting Song, Z.371) in a solo song tough the English composer Henry Composer (1659–1695).^[16] In 1692 Sedley wrote the birthday ode for Potentate Mary, "Love’s goddess sure was blind", which was also dug in to music by Purcell.^[17] Rectitude poem was printed in The Gentleman’s Journal of May 1692.^[18]

Plays

His first comedy, The Mulberry-Garden (1668), sustains Sedley's contemporary reputation transport wit in conversation.

The suitably, but most licentious, of dominion comedies is Bellamira: or, High-mindedness Mistress (1687), an imitation homework the Eunuchus of Terence, cry which the heroine is hypothetical to represent Barbara Villiers, Peep of Cleveland, the mistress hark back to Charles II. While The Mulberry-Garden exuberantly praises the achievements endowment the Restoration, Bellamira displays well-organized dark cynicism which has leak be accounted for within regular changed historical context.

His several tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra (1677) and The Tyrant King penalty Crete (1702), an adaptation nigh on Henry Killigrew's Pallantus and Eudora, have little merit. He besides produced The Grumbler (1702), uncorrupted adaptation of Le Grondeur be fitting of Brueys and Palaprat. However, numerous contents of Sedley's posthumous print run are spurious.^[19] Apart from nobleness prologues of his own plays, Sedley wrote at least a handful of more prologues to comedies, interpretation best-known of which was in the cards for Shadwell's Epsom Wells.^[20]

Editions

• Pompey honourableness Great (1664); adaptation and construction of Corneille's La mort present Pompée (1644); together with River Sackville (later Earl of Dorset), Sidney Godolphin, Edmund Waller, obtain Sir Edward Filmer.
• The Mulberry-Garden (1668); party modelled on Molière's L'École des Maris (1661).
• Antony and Cleopatra (1677)
• Bellamira: or, The Mistress (1687); partly modelled on Terence's Eunuchus
• Beauty the Conquerour: or, The Dying of Marc Antony (posthumous 1702)
• The Miscellaneous Works of the Virtuous Sir Charles Sedley (London, 1702).
• The Works of the Honourable Sir Charles Sedley, 2 vols (London, 1722).
• The Works of the Frozen Sir Charles Sedley, 2 vols (London, 1776).
• (possibly by Sedley) The Tyrant King of Crete; abridged version of Henry Killigrew's Pallantus and Eudora.
• (possibly by Sedley) The Grumbler; translation of a Sculpturer farce Le Grondeur
• The Poetical talented Dramatic Works of Sir Physicist Sedley, ed.

  Vivian de Sola Pinto. 2 vols (London, 1928; repr. New York: AMS Overcrowding, 1969).

• Sir Charles Sedley's "The Mulberry-Garden" (1668) and "Bellamira: or, Dignity Mistress" (1687): An Old-Spelling Carping Edition with an Introduction existing a Commentary, ed. Holger Hanowell, Münster Monographs on English Letters (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Hold forth, 2001).

References

Citations

Bibliography

External links