This curious little work is full of pious reflexions and thoughts, both in prose and verse. It was dedicated first to Charles II., and afterwards to James II., who had made his old age much happier than ever his youth was, 'when I shared in all the glories of this Court, and splendour of Four great Kings for three score years.' He himself describes the book as 'a small parcel of such fruit as my little cell in White Hall doth naturally produce from the barren brains of 82 years old.' He also wrote some plays of a very different stamp from those of his younger brother, as may be judged from the following lines:
'COMMENDATORY VERSES BEFORE THREE PLAYS[80] OF SIR WILLIAM KILLIGREW.—(By T. L.)
'That thy wise and modest Muse
Flies the Stage's looser use;
Not bawdry Wit does falsely name,
And to move laughter puts off shame:—
'That thy theatre's loud noise
May be virgin's chaste applause;
And the stoled matron, grave divine,
Their lectures done, may tend to thine:—
'That no actor's made profane,
To debase Gods, to raise thy strain;
And people forced, that hear thy Play,
Their money and their souls to pay:—
'That thou leav'st affected phrase
To the shops, to use and praise;
And breath'st a noble Courtly vein,—
Such as may Cæsar entertain,
'When he wearied would lay down
The burdens that attend a crown;
Disband his soul's severer powers,
In mirth and ease dissolve two hours;—
'These are thy inferior arts,
These I call thy second parts;—
But, when thou carriest on the plot,
And all are lost in th' subtle knot,
* * * * * 'Th' easy and the even design;
A plot, without a God, divine!—
Let others' bold pretending pens
Write acts of Gods, that know not men's;
In this to thee all must resign;
Th' Surprise of th' Scene is wholly thine.'
He was buried at the Savoy some time between 1693 and 1695, and left by his wife, Mary Hill, a Warwickshire lady, one son, Sir Robert, Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Anne of Denmark, and some time Lord of the Manor of Crediton, in Devon, whose only son Sir Henry died in St. Giles'-in-the-Fields, without issue. Of his two daughters, one, Elizabeth, married Sir Francis Clifton; the other, Mary, married Frederic de Nassau, Lord of Zulestein. Their son William Henry was in great favour with our William III., who, in 1695, created him Baron Enfield, Viscount Tonbridge, and Earl of Rochford; but, as we have seen, the descent, in the male line, from old Sir William became extinct.