George Villiers Buckingham (1628 – 1687)
English dramatist, poet, politician, wit and rake.
The first gentleman of person and wit I think I ever saw.
She that would raise a noble love must find
Ways to beget a passion for her mind;
She must be that which she to the world would seem,
For all true love is grounded on esteem:
Plainness and truth gain more a generous heart
Than all the crooked subtleties of art.
Why, Sir, when I have anything to invent, I never trouble my head about it, as other men do; but presently turn over this Book, and there I have, at one view, all that Perseus, Montaigne, Seneca's Tragedies, Horace, Juvenal, Claudian, Pliny, Plutarch's lives, and the rest, have ever thought upon this subject: and so, in a trice, by leaving out a few words, or putting in others of my own, the business is done.
The world is made up, for the most part, of fools and knaves, both irreconcileable foes to truth.
There are few have Dana's fortune, to have God and gold togather.
We might well call this short Mock-play of ours
A Posie made of Weeds instead of Flowers;
Yet such have been presented to your noses,
And there are such, I fear, who thought 'em Roses.
Methinks, I see the wanton houres flee,
And as they passe, turne back and laugh at me.
He had no principles of religion, virtue, or friendship. Pleasure, frolic, or extravagant diversion, was all that he laid to heart. He was true to nothing, for he was not true to himself.
Buckingham was a sated man of pleasure, who had turned to ambition as a pastime. As he had tried to amuse himself with architecture and music, with writing farces and with seeking for the philosopher's stone, so he now tried to amuse himself with a secret negotiation and a Dutch war.
Make my breast
Transparent as pure crystal, that the world,
Jealous of me, may see the foulest thought
My heart holds.
O! what a prodigal have I been of that most valuable of all possessions — Time!
Ay, now the Plot thickens very much upon us.
I drink, I huff, I strut, look big and stare;
And all this I can do, because I dare.
All these threatening storms, which, like impregnate Clouds, hover o'er our heads, will (when they once are grasp'd but by the eye of reason) melt into fruitful showers of blessings on the people.
A mans fame and hayre grow most after death, and are both equally uselesse.
What a Devil is the Plot good for, but to bring in fine things?
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon. …
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, but they had his estate.
A Lady that was drown'd at Sea, and had a wave for her Winding sheet.
The blackest Ink of Fate, sure, was my Lot,
And, when she writ my Name, she made a blot.