occasion. He was not tried by the whole house of peers, though the parliament was then actually existing by prerogative; but by a select number of seventy-seven peers, summoned by the lord-high-steward for that purpose. He protested against this irregularity; but his objections being overruled, the trial proceeded. However, he made so full and clear a defence, that the peers, appointed to try him, unanimously acquitted him. After this Lord Delamer lived in a retired manner in the country, much honoured and beloved, till measures were concerted for bringing about the Revolution, in which he very heartily concurred. On the prince of Orange's landing in England, his lordship, in a few days, raised a great force in Cheshire and Lancashire, and therewith marched to join that prince. On the prince's arrival at Windsor, in his approach towards London, Lord Delamer, together with the marquess of Halifax and the earl of Shrewsbury, were sent with a message to King James, to remove from Whitehall. Lord Delamer, though no flatterer of the king in his prosperity, was too generous to insult him in his distress, and treated the fallen monarch with great respect. Walpole says, "that Lord Delamer, who was thrice imprisoned for his noble love of liberty, and who narrowly escaped the fury of James and Jefferies, lived to be commissioned by the prince of Orange to order that king to remove from Whitehall, a message which he delivered with a generous decency." Out of the forces which were raised by Lord Delamer to join the prince of Orange, a regiment of horse was afterwards formed, the command of which was for some time committed to him as colonel; and this regiment served in Ireland during the war in that kingdom. On the 14th of February, 1689, Lord Delamer was sworn a privy-councillor; and, on the 9th of April following, he was made chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer. On the 12th of the same month he was also made lord-lieutenant of the county and city of Chester. This last office, together with that of privy-councillor, he enjoyed for life ; but as to the others, he continued in them for about one year only. Mr Walpole says, "He was dismissed by King William, to gratify the tories." However, it was not thought advisable to displace a nobleman who had contributed so much towards the Revolution in a disobliging manner; and, therefore, he was, by letters-patent, bearing date, Westminster, 17th of April, 1690, created earl of Warrington, in the county of Lancaster. His lordship was thus characterised in a poem, written in the reign of King William: "A brave asserter of his country's rights: A noble, but ungovernable fire, Such is the hero's,-did his breast inspire. Fit to assist to pull a tyrant down; But not to please a prince that mounts the throne. His country's mound against th' invading flood. He died in London on the 2d of January, 1693, in the forty-second year of his age, and was interred in the family vault of Bowden-church, in the county of Chester. He was a nobleman illustriously distinguished for his public spirit and his noble ardour in defence of the lib erties of his country. He considered patriotism essential to the character of a virtuous man. In his Advice to his Children,' he says, "There never yet was any good man who had not an ardent zeal for his country." In his private life he appears to have been a man of piety, worth, honour, and humanity. His works, which were published in one volume, 8vo, in 1694, contain his Advice to his Children,' an 'Essay on Government,' several of his speeches in parliament; fifteen small Political Tracts or Essays; and The Case of William, earl of Devonshire.' He also wrote Observations on the Case of Lord Russell,' for whom he had a great friendship, and who, on the morning of his execution, sent him a very kind message, expressive of his regard for him. Sackville, Earl of Dorset. BORN A. D. 1637.-DIED A. D. 1705. CHARLES SACKVILLE, sixth earl of Dorset and Middlesex, one of the most accomplished libertines of the most licentious age of English history, was the direct descendant of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Buckhurst, and the inheritor of his ancestor's poetical genius. He was privately educated, and, after making the grand tour, returned to England a little before the Restoration. In the first parliament subsequent to that event, he was chosen representative for East Grimstead in Sussex, and made a considerable figure in the house as a speaker. Charles II. offered him employment under the government, but he was too much set upon the gratification of his pleasures to engage seriously in any thing like business. The associate of Villiers, Rochester, Sedley, and other profligate men of fashion, he entered into much of their profligacy. Wood has preserved an anecdote sufficiently illustrative of the debauched habits of the young nobility after the Restoration. He informs us that Sackville, Sir Charles Sedley, and Sir Thomas Ogle, having, on one occasion, got themselves supremely drunk in a tavern near Covent-garden, went into a balcony, and commenced haranguing the populace, and playing a number of mountebank tricks. Not satisfied with the applause and notoriety thus obtained from the rabble, Sedley at last stripped himself naked, and in this style stood forth, and began to harangue the assembled crowd in such profane language, that even the indignation of the mob was roused, and an attack was made upon the house in which the three libertines had established themselves. For this misdemeanor they were indicted, and Sedley was fined £500. He employed Killigrew and some other friends to procure a remission of his fine, and they succeeded so far as to obtain from the merry monarch' liberty to divide it among themselves, which they did, exacting the fine from Sedley to the utmost farthing. In 1665, on the breaking out of the first Dutch war, Sackville awoke to something like the consciousness of a manlier spirit than he had hitherto exhibited. He placed himself as a volunteer under his royal highness, and conducted himself well in the action of the 3d of June. It was on the evening preceding this engagement that he composed the well-known song,- To all you Ladies now at Land.' Soon after, he 6 was made a gentleman of the bed-chamber, and sent on several unimportant embassies to France. Upon the death of his uncle Cranfield, earl of Middlesex, in 1674, the estates devolved upon him, and two years afterwards he succeeded by creation to the title. He also succeeded to his father in 1677. In 1684 he was constituted lord-lieutenant of Sussex. He early engaged for the prince of Orange, and accompanied the Princess Anne on her flight from her father's court. On the succession of the prince and princess of Orange to the throne, Dorset was sworn of the privy-council, and made lord-chamberlain of the household. He had the honour of being four times appointed regent of the kingdom during his majesty's absence. In 1698 he retired somewhat from public life; he spent the remainder of his years in comparative obscurity. He died at Bath in January 1705-6. Horace Walpole has passed this high eulogium upon Dorset, that "he had as much wit as his first master Charles II., or his contemporaries, Buckingham and Rochester, without the king's want of feeling, the duke's want of principle, or the earl's want of thought." Prior, Dryden, Congreve, Addison, and Pope, write in the praises of this nobleman. Pope's lines commencing— "Dorset, the grace of courts, the muse's pride, are well-known, and sufficiently complimentary. Sir Cloudesley Shovell. BORN A. D. 1650.-DIED A. D. 1707. THIS brave man was descended from parents so extremely poor, that they were incapable of making any better provision for him in life than that of binding him to a shoemaker. His genius, ill-brooking such an occupation, and displaying itself even in the most early periods of his life, he was recommended by Sir Christopher Mings, who had casually noticed his conduct, to Sir John Narborough, who received him, and appointed him one of his cabin boys, when no more than nine years old. It is related of him that, while yet a boy, he undertook to swim through the line of the enemy's fire, in one of the piratical ports on the coast of Barbary, and convey some despatches to a distant ship, which it would have been extremely inconvenient for the commanderin-chief to have transmitted by any other less concealed means. These and some other actions impressed so high an opinion of him on the mind of his patron, that almost ere he had reached manhood, he was intrusted by Sir John with missions of great importance and delicacy. He was sent more than once to the dey of Tripoli to make remonstrances against the piratical conduct of his corsairs: his arguments proved insufficient to bend the haughty mind of the barbarian, but the observations made by him, when attempting to perform the objects of his mission, were such as enabled him to form a plan for the demolition of the enemy's squadron, notwithstanding it lay at anchor under the very guns of the town. Having communicated his project to the admiral, Sir John, without hesitation, appointed the young hero to superintend and conduct the execution of his own plan. The most complete suc cess crowned the attempt, and Shovell was rewarded for his skill and gallantry with the command of the Sapphire frigate. From the month of March, 1675, the period when the occurrence just mentioned took place, to the year 1686, he remained constantly employed in the Mediterranean. The catalogue of his successes against the states of Barbary would be tedious in the recital. On his return to England, James II., in the midst of that ferment which preceded the revolution, entertained so high an opinion of Shovell's honour, as to appoint him captain of the Dover, although his political principles were known to be inimical to the wishes of the tottering sovereign. Among the first naval appointments of the new reign was that of Mr Shovell to be captain of the Edgar, on board which ship he led the van of Admiral Herberts' squadron, at the battle in Bantry-bay, where he distinguished himself so remarkably, that King William conferred on him the honour of knighthood, at the same time when the earl of Torrington was raised to the peerage. At the time the French fleet made its sudden and unexpected appearance in the British channel, in the year 1690, Sir Cloudesley commanded a light detached squadron, owing to which circumstance he was prevented from sharing in the unmerited obloquy so generally cast on the many brave men who commanded under the earl of Torrington. He remained in constant employ; and having been in the interim promoted to be rear-admiral of the red, bore a distinguished share in the defeat of the Count de Tourville. In 1694 Sir Cloudesley, who had been advanced to the rank of viceadmiral of the red, was appointed second in command under Lord Berkeley, of the fleet sent into Cameret bay; and when the latter struck his flag for a time, which he did on the return of the armament to England, Sir Cloudesley succeeded him in his command, and, by the express order of King William, proceeded against Dunkirk. His employment ceased for a time, with his having commanded the escort which attended King William to Holland, immediately previous to the peace of Ryswick. Sir Cloudesley assumed the command of a strong fleet sent into the channel, as he afterwards did during the two succeeding years; a cautionary show of resistance, which, in all probability, tended to render the actual display of it unnecessary till after the accession of Queen Anne. In 1703 he commanded the fleet of Britain stationed in the Mediterranean; and, in the ensuing year, commanded the van of the combined fleet in the battle of Malaga. In the ensuing year he was engaged in co-operating with the duke of Savoy at the siege of Toulon, the failure of which was certainly by no means ascribable to any want of exertion on the part of the fleet. On his return homewards, his vessel, the Association, together with two other ships of war, one carrying seventy, the other fifty guns, was unfortunately cast away on the rocks of Scilly, on the evening of the 22d of October, 1707. Sir Cloudesley's body, which was taken up on the Scilly islands, was conveyed to England, and buried, with great funeral pomp, in Westminster-abbey, at the public expense. A particular circumstance attending his death has been preserved in the family of the earl of Romney, and is too interesting to be omitted: "The admiral was not drowned; but, after having reached the shore in safety, was, according to the confession of an ancient woman, by her treacherously and inhumanly murdered. This atrocious act she, many years afterwards, when on her deathbed, revealed to the minister of the parish who attended her, declaring she could not die in peace till she had made this confession. She acknowledged having been led to commit this horrid deed for the sake of plunder; and that she then had in her possession, among other things, an emerald ring, which she had been afraid to sell lest it should lead to a discovery. This ring, which was then delivered to the minister, was by him given to James, earl of Berkeley-in possession of whose family it now remains-at his particular request, Sir Cloudesley Shovell and himself having lived on terms of the most intimate friendship. The manner of his death, as well as the discovery of the ring, is related differently by Campbell and others; but from the channel through which the communication was made, we have every reason to conclude that this account is undoubt edly most authentic." Sir George Rooke. BORN A. D. 1650.-DIED A. D. 1708. SIR GEORGE ROOKE, Son to Sir William Rooke, the descendant of a very ancient Kentish family, after serving for nearly twenty years in the royal navy as lieutenant and captain of divers ships of war, was, at the epoch of the revolution, captain of the Deptford. The first enterprise in which we find him engaged, was the relief of Londonderry, at that time closely besieged, and severely pressed by the catholic army and the French allies of James. The eagerness and the ability which he displayed on this occasion interested the earl of Torrington so much in his favour, that he was, as it is said, in consequence of the express recommendation of that noble lord, advanced to the rank of rear-admiral of the red. In this station he served under his unfortunate patron and friend at the battle of Beachy-head. In the month of May, 1692, a very few days only previous to the memorable encounter off Cape la Hogue, he was specially chosen by his colleagues to transmit to the admiralty board a loyal address from the flag-officers and captains of the fleet, professing, in the warmest terms, their attachment to their majesties and their government. He was on this occasion promoted to be vice-admiral of the blue, and bore a very conspicuous part in the great engagement with the French fleet. In the ensuing spring he received the honour of knighthood, and was promoted to be vice-admiral of the white squadron. Almost immediately afterwards he was ordered to the Straits, for the purpose of convoying thither a very numerous fleet of merchant-ships, amounting to no less than four hundred sail. The force put under his command consisted of twenty-one ships of two decks, English and Dutch, two frigates, and five smaller vessels. The grand fleet, under the orders of the joint admirals, Shovell, Delawal, and Killegrew, for the better protection of so valuable a stake, saw Sir George in safety, so far as the distance of fifty leagues to the south-west of Ushant. Such, however, was the address of the enemy, the correctness of their information, and |