“— in the rubbish spy
A thing resembling a goose pie.”
Sir John Vanbrugh was more successful as a dramatist than as an architect, though his work at Blenheim and elsewhere has many merits.
[59d] For the successes of the last campaign.
[60a] John Sheffield, third Earl of Mulgrave, was created Duke of Buckingham and Normanby in 1703, and died in 1721. On Queen Anne’s accession he became Lord Privy Seal, and on the return of the Tories to power in 1710 he was Lord Steward, and afterward (June 1710) Lord President of the Council. The Duke was a poet, as well as a soldier and statesman, his best known work being the Essay on Poetry. He was Dryden’s patron, and Pope prepared a collected edition of his works.
[60b] Laurence Hyde, created Earl of Rochester in 1682, died in 1711. He was the Hushai of Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, “the friend of David in distress.” In 1684 he was made Lord President of the Council, and on the accession of James II., Lord Treasurer; he was, however, dismissed in 1687. Under William III. Rochester was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an office he resigned in 1703; and in September 1710 he again became Lord President. His imperious temper always stood in the way of popularity or real success.
[60c] Sir Thomas Osborne, Charles II.’s famous Minister, was elevated to the peerage in 1673, and afterwards was made successively Earl of Danby, Marquis of Caermarthen, and Duke of Leeds. On Nov. 29, 1710, a few days after this reference to him, the Duke was granted a pension of £3500 a year out of the Post Office revenues. He died in July 1712, aged eighty-one, and soon afterwards his grandson married Lord Oxford’s daughter.