’Muse ’tis enough, at length thy labour ends,
  And thou shalt live; for Buckingham commends. 
  Let crowds of critics now my verse assail,
  Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail. 
  This more than pays whole years of thankless pain,
  Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain. 
  Sheffield approves:  conferring Phoebus bends;
  And I, and malice, from this hour are friends.’

The two plays of Julius Caesar, which he altered from Shakespear, are both with Chorusses, after the manner of the Ancients:  These plays were to have been performed in the year 1729, and all the Chorusses were set to music by that great master in composition, Signor Bononcini; but English voices being few, the Italians were applied to, who demanded more for their nightly performance, than the receipts of the house could amount to at the usual raised prices, and on that account the design was dropt.

It appears that our noble author had conceived a great regard for Mr. Pope, on his earliest appearance in the literary world; and was among the first to acknowledge the young bard’s merit, in commendatory verses upon his excellence in poetry.  The following compliment from the duke is prefixed to the first volume of Mr. Pope’s works.

On Mr. Pope, and his POEMs, by his Grace John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.

  With age decay’d, with courts and bus’ness tir’d,
  Caring for nothing, but what ease requir’d;
  Too dully serious for the muses sport,
  And from the critics safe arriv’d in port;
  I little thought of launching forth agen,
  Amidst advent’rous rovers of the pen;
  And after so much undeserv’d success,
  Thus hazarding at last to make it less. 
  Encomiums suit not this censorious time,
  Itself a subject for satyric rhime;
  Ignorance honour’d, wit and mirth defam’d,
  Folly triumphant, and ev’n Homer blam’d! 
  But to this genius, join’d with so much art,
  Such various learning mix’d in ev’ry part,
  Poets are bound a loud applause to pay;
  Apollo bids it, and they must obey. 
  And yet so wonderful, sublime a thing,
  As the great Iliad, scarce cou’d make me sing;
  Except I justly cou’d at once commend
  A good companion, and as firm a friend. 
  One moral, or a mere well-natur’d deed
  Can all desert in sciences exceed. 
  ’Tis great delight to laugh at some men’s ways,
  But a much greater to give merit praise.

[Footnote 1:  Character of the Duke of Buckingham, p. 2.  London, 1739.]

[Footnote 2:  General Dictionary.  See Article Sheffield.]

[Footnote 3:  Vol, ii, p. 106.]

* * * * *

Charles Cotton, Esq;

This ingenious gentleman lived in the reigns of Charles and James ii.  He resided for a great part of his life at Beresford in the county of Stafford.  He had some reputation for lyric poetry, but was particularly famous for burlesque verse.  He translated from the French Monsieur Corneille’s Horace, printed in 4to.  London 1671, and dedicated to his dear sister Mrs. Stanhope Hutchinson.  This play was first finished in 1665, but in his prefatory epistle he tells us,