Sedley

Sedley, SIR CHARLES, courtier and poet, was born at his father's seat at Aylesford, Kent, in 1639, a maternal grandson of the famous Sir Henry Savile. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, repaired to court at the Restoration, and soon became notorious at once for debauchery and wit. Later he sat in parliament for New Romney, retired from court, and joined the party of William at the Revolution, out of gratitude to James, who had seduced his daughter, and made her Countess of Dorchester. 'Since his majesty has made my daughter a countess,' said he, 'it is fit I should do all I can to make his daughter a queen.' Johnson's line, 'And Sedley cursed the form that pleased a king,' has kept alive the memory of this sordid amour, but it is worth noticing that the daughter, speaking of what attracted the king, decries her own beauty with something of her father's wit: 'It cannot be my beauty, for he must see that I have none; and it cannot be my wit, for he has not enough to know that I have any.' Sedley survived till 1701. He left six plays, among them The Mulberry Garden and Bellamira, but what little fame remains to him now rests solely on a few songs and vers de société. It is enough to name three, 'Phillis, men say that all my vows;' 'Ah, Chloris, that I now could sit;' 'Love still has something of the sea,' to make good a claim to unusual gracefulness of fancy and mastery of form. Even his licentiousness does not wear the open grossness of the age.