Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst (1652), fourth Earl of Middlesex (1675), and sixth Earl of Dorset (1678), was the son of Richard Sackville, fifth Earl of Dorset (died 1677). Charles was a Restoration courtier-patron-poet. He became an influential participant in King Charles II's "ministry of pleasure" and ended his career as a high-ranking but uninfluential member of King William III's cabinet; he was an important companion and patron of many Restoration poets and playwrights from Sir Charles Sedley, Sir George Etherege, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, John Dryden, and Samuel Butler at the beginning of the period to Thomas Shadwell, Nahum Tate, Thomas Durfey, Robert Gould, and Matthew Prior at the end; and he was a poet of some significance in his own right--just important enough in Samuel Johnson's view to be included in The Lives of the Poets (1779-1781). Although Johnson valued him very little, he quoted Dryden's Discourse Concerning the Original...