William Walsh was born on 6 October 1662 at Abberley Hall in Worcestershire, into a world in which inherited land, family connection, political loyalty, and literary cultivation could reinforce one another. He died on 15 March 1708, only forty-five years old, having lived as a country gentleman, Member of Parliament, court servant, poet, playwright, critic, and, perhaps most memorably, an early patron and adviser of…
“There ought to be the same difference observed between pastorals and elegies as between the life of the country and the court.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Light Verse Poets, Love Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Sir Charles Sedley, fifth baronet, was born in March 1639 and died on 20 August 1701. He belonged to that brilliant and troubling generation of Restoration writers whose lives seem inseparable from the political convulsions, sexual freedoms, theatrical revivals, and moral contradictions of later seventeenth-century England. Poet, playwright, translator, conversational wit, courtier, landowner, and member of Parliamen…
“As the king has made my daughter a countess, the least I can do, in common gratitude, is to assist in making his Majesty's daughter a queen.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Light Verse Poets, Restoration Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Irony, Joy
